The Annals of Darkness: Table of the Keyblades
by Shire Folk
Summary: Life on the islands resumes peacefully, but with no immanent threat to their lives the gang begins to get restless. Pence comes up with a brilliant solution to pass time and ease boredom, the world of fantasy role-playing.
1. The Party

_Hey all. I've been wanting to do this for a while, just to further announce my total geek to all of you, and I doubt that this would be at all interesting to most of you, but for those who like this sort of thing all the power to you for reading something I've spent time geeking out on._

_In essence, this is extra stuff to The Annals of Darkness series that I have been writing, using random continuity from the fic. There are very few spoilers here for things that may/may not happen during or after __**The War**__, but a big what if simulation of if the gang decided to…well, you've read the summary and I might as well show you rather than tell you. Warning, should you read this without experience you will invariably learn many of the rules of the game and might end up wanting to play it. Now should I have a character do the disclaimer or should I just—_

_(Yuffie poofs in via a cloud of black smoke and raises her hand in the air)_

_Yuffie: "Ooh! I will! Shire Folk does not own us, Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Final Fantasy, or Forgotten Realms in version 3.5e D&D! Now let's start the geek out so I can get onto killing things and taking their shit."_

_Oh yes, rated M due to language and possible situations that may arise._

-A-D-

**The Annals of Darkness**

**Table of the Keyblades**

Chapter I: The Party

Laughter echoed across the beach of a small island on the world of Destiny Islands. The sun had set in the west an hour before, and a bonfire cast light onto the sand and faces of the teenagers enjoying each other's company. There were twelve in total around the fire, chatting idly or laughing at jokes and stories told or the antics of their members.

Sora swept a metal hand through the wet spikes of his chocolate hair, getting out some of the ocean's water just recently put into it. "You're lucky Tidus," he said, his cerulean eyes staring at the blond who'd just tackled him into the surf. "If I didn't have my oil here with me, Winry would be on my case faster than you could blink, and then she'd be whacking_ you_ on the head with her wrench."

"Good thing it is here then," Tidus said, giving the Keyblade Master's red-headed girlfriend Kairi a sly look, "now Kairi can put all the lube on you she wants."

"Careful Tidus," said the girl with indigo eyes as she grabbed the can of oil and rag that was lying on a log, "keep talking, and I might just spill this oil on you and send a spark from the fire to it."

"No you won't Kairi," Selphie said, just shaking her head. The auburn-haired princess shrugged and came over to Sora, who was now drying the automail limb he had for a left arm off with a towel. Sora'd lost his arm in an accident during a battle, and his friends had found a pair of mechanics in the town of Resembool in the world of Amestris who were able to fashion a new arm for him. Winry Rockbell and her grandmother Pinako had done a wonderful job, but Sora had learned the hard way that it rusted easily in salt water, and gotten a scolding from Winry that he hadn't been taking care of it properly when he went by to get it fixed.

He was sure that the goose egg he'd received at the end of Winry's wrench had lasted for a week.

While Kairi oiled Sora's arm, working hard to clean it free of all the ocean's salts and keep the joints moving smoothly, Sora smiled warmly at her while also looking around at his group of friends that had come back to Destiny Islands with them even after all they'd been through. Riku was here, of course, and Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie had returned home to the Islands as well. Roxas and Naminé had come back with them too, the two former Nobodies enjoying their lives with their new 'twins'. What surprised Sora was that Hayner, Pence, and Olette, the Twilight Town trio, had been able to convince their parents that they should relocate to Destiny Islands so they could live close to the friends from the Islands that they'd grown so close to.

There was one other addition to the gang, one that Riku especially was very glad to have. Yuffie Kisaragi had come to live on Destiny Islands too after receiving her own Keyblade, staying in the house of her boyfriend. They still couldn't believe it. Riku had actually fallen for Yuffie during their long fight, something that was making both Keyblade Wielders _very_ happy. Every time either one of them looked at each other these days it seemed impossible for either of them to refuse the smile that appeared an instant later.

"Urg!" Hayner declared dramatically, flopping back onto the sand and gazing up at all the returned stars. "I'm so bored! All we do is hang out, go to school, and practice to keep ourselves sharp for whenever the next villain's going to step up and try to take over."

"So dating me's boring Hayner?" asked Olette with an amused smile, the brunette waiting to see his reaction.

He smiled back at her. "Going on a date with you Olette is never boring, I'm just saying that we should actually _do_ something."

"I agree," Roxas said. "All this peace is just a little boring."

"But it's what we fought for," Naminé said, her hands hugging her knees. "To be honest, I'm content."

"I'm with Riku," Kairi said, still rubbing the oiled rag up and down Sora's arm. It was a soothing motion to her, and Sora knew that she loved doing it as much as he enjoyed the feeling of the oil soaking into the parts of his arm and getting it clean. "Life has become just a little passé considering all we've been through in the past year."

"Tell me about it," Yuffie remarked, poking the fire with a stick. "Coming here to watch over you guys, fighting to defend this place, finding a boyfriend, getting a Keyblade, fighting Heartless, Nobodies, monsters, Maleficent, and even gods? Island life seems a little dull after that, wouldn't you say?"

"I like it though," Wakka chipped in, leaning back. "Me an' Tidus can get back to blitz training, yah?"

"You know it," Tidus said eagerly. "Our school team's going to take the cup this year, no doubt about that."

"Just make sure you slam the Krakens," Riku said. "We can't forgive them for winning last year."

"Oh don't worry, we'll take them down!" Tidus guaranteed.

Pence spoke up in the silence that followed. "You know, it doesn't have to be so boring," he said slowly. "We _could_ do something other than schoolwork, dating, and training."

"Like what?" Hayner asked. "Go out and kill a few fiends? No thanks. We've done enough fighting for now. Let the Guardians handle that job."

"No," Pence said. "Why don't we start up a Dungeons and Dragons group?"

Sora added his groan to the group chorus. "D&D?" he asked. "C'mon Pence."

"No seriously," Pence said through the blush that was running rampant across his cheeks. "It could be fun, and it'll pass the time."

"But that's for geeks and nerds," Yuffie said. "No offence."

Pence didn't appear to take offence at the comment, but Roxas spoke up before he could. "Besides, that's an adventure RPG right? Why should we pretend to be badass adventurers when we already _are_ badass adventurers?" To prove his point, the only one who wore the purple and gold cape of one of King Mickey's Knights of Disney Castle held out his hand and summoned his Keyblade into his hand. The blond looked admiringly at the Twilight Thorn Keyblade in the firelight, with its circular white hilt and black cylindrical blade. Where the hilt met the blade the two ends of it wrapped around the black core of the Keyblade in a double helix, meeting up with one another near the end to form the skeleton key portion, which actually didn't extend out but only increased the length of the Keyblade as a bayonet.

"Well," Pence said, rubbing the back of his head, "because you wouldn't have to be yourselves."

That caught Sora's interest a little. "Hm?"

"You wouldn't have to be kickass saviours of light," Pence continued, "you could be evil if you wanted."

"Wait a second," Yuffie said, sitting up and looking at Pence. "As geeky as this is, we could be total dicks to _everybody_ like we secretly want to be, and there'd be no consequences?"

"In the game there'd be consequences, but it's not like you personally would actually be affected in any way. If you wanted to go around stealing people's stuff you could, or if you wanted to join an organization that wants to destroy the whole world because they find it fun you could, or you could become a member of a holy paladin order and spread justice across the land or even just go around stomping orcs and undead."

There was a pause after Pence started speaking that stretched on for many minutes. "No," Tidus said, shaking his head. "I've got Blitzball; there's no way I'm giving that up for fantasy role-playing."

"I'm with Tidus on this one Pence," Wakka added.

"Aw, come on," Pence fired back. "You guys were complaining about being bored too."

"Yeah, but D&D seems even more bor—"

"I'm in," Naminé said.

Everyone gaped at the blonde Princess of Radiant Garden. "Naminé," Selphie asked, "are you serious?"

"Yes," she said with a nod of her head. "It sounds like it might be fun. It might even give me a few ideas for things to draw or paint too."

Pence smiled encouragingly. "Thanks Naminé. That's one."

Sora mulled it over. "You know," he began, "I think I'd like to try it too."

"Really Sora?" Kairi asked. "You want to play too?"

"Why not?" Sora shrugged. "I mean, if I _really_ wanted to go and kill a bunch of orcs I could just open a portal to Middle-earth and go hunting, but I'd rather stay here."

The others looked at each other in slight discomfort while Sora and Naminé shared shy smiles with one another and Pence. They looked to be the only three to stick their necks out and admit to wanting to play something that had such a social stigma around it. "You don't have to completely commit," Pence said aloud to the rest of the group, "I'm just asking if you want to try it out."

Kairi bit the bottom of her lip and looked about to speak when Selphie burst in. "No way Pence," she said. "I'm not going to do something like that; I've got gymnastics, though I might come by and watch you guys for a laugh or two." Sora felt his cheeks burn.

Now Kairi did speak. "I'll play," she said, her voice suddenly joined by another two. Riku and Yuffie had spoken simultaneously in agreement to try it out.

"So long as nobody finds out about this," Riku hastily added. "I'm serious. This _cannot_ leave this group that I'm going to try playing D&D."

"Why?" asked Olette. "Might lose that bad boy image you've got?" Riku found it sufficient to stare at Olette until she looked away.

Roxas sighed. "Well, if you five are in, then I'll play too," he said, giving Naminé a weak smile. He looked to Hayner and Olette. The couple glanced at one another before looking at Pence.

"No promises," Hayner answered for them, "but we might come by and check it out."

Pence nodded his head. He'd probably expected as much from the group, but to have _the six_ agree was great. "Fair enough," Pence said. "Where do you think we should meet and when?"

"Might as well start soon," Naminé said. "Tomorrow maybe? I'm sure we could ask Ovan to put aside a room in our house, right Kairi?"

"Yeah we could," Kairi answered, looking at her twin. Ovan Ramius, the Marquess of the Marchlands of Ramius, was a nobleman of Radiant Garden and had been a close friend of King Raithen, Kairi's actual birth father. He'd been named her godfather when the auburn-haired Princess of Heart had been born, and had since come to Destiny Islands along with his wife and two sons to live with and provide for the twin Princesses.

The good boon about that was that they now lived with six hard working servants in a big mansion the Marquess had had built, all but two of the servants from the castle that stood in Radiant Garden.

"Okay," Sora said, "so tomorrow at Kairi and Naminé's then?"

"Sure," agreed Roxas. "It's a Sunday tomorrow anyway."

Selphie rolled her eyes and gazed into the fire as it made a loud _crack_ and sent a plume of sparks into the night air. "Have fun," she said whimsically.

-A-D-

A blonde-haired girl of nineteen wearing a white tank top with a pleated brown skirt that just brushed the lower edge of her knees was shaking her head at Naminé and Kairi as the two went from room to room in the mansion, searching for one of a suitable size that would also be out of the way enough to suit their purposes. "I still can't believe you two," said Agatha, Naminé's personal handmaiden. "Dungeons and Dragons? Really?"

"Yes," Naminé answered tiredly. "So are you going to keep saying that or are you going to help us?"

Agatha Quin sighed. Handmaiden, protector, close personal friend, fellow person who'd endured Ur's insane training or not, she was still a servant and had to oblige. "Yes Your Highness," she answered, joining the two females.

The three were at it for only a few minutes more, combing the ground floor for a nice room, when both of Ovan's sons came in. Kairi had first been surprised when she'd met them. She had expected that a man who had been her birth father's friend would have had children around the same time as he had, but while Kairi was sixteen her two 'godbrothers' Alton and Harland were ten and nine respectively. "What are you doing?" Alton asked.

"Looking for haunted rooms," Naminé replied.

"But the mansion was just built!" Harland answered with a giggle. "There aren't any ghosts here."

"There will be if one of you hides all my underwear all over the house again!" Naminé hissed. The two laughed and ran off before Naminé could do anything, like casting a spell that would turn them into popsicles.

Kairi frowned and looked at the doorway where they'd run away. "We're going to need a place where they won't bug us."

Agatha nodded her head. Truthfully she'd like to find a secluded place where the brats wouldn't bug _her_. The Marquess and his wife were very doting and liberal with them. Not a single room in the house was off-limits to their sons, not even the private bathroom Naminé and Kairi shared.

But there was _one_ room that the two Keyblade-wielding Princesses kept locked whenever they were not within it. Not even their bedrooms were kept so private from the two boys. "Naminé," said the servant, "your studio."

The girls' eyes brightened as they looked at each other. "Yes, that'd be perfect! They won't bother all of us in there, and it's got plenty of room," Kairi said.

"And light," Naminé added, "what with all the windows." Kairi and Agatha both nodded.

"You can wait for our friends and show them up when they get here Agatha," Kairi said, "we'll set the room up." The blonde servant nodded.

It was only a half-hour later with the clock saying that it was around ten past two in the afternoon when Sora and Roxas arrived up in the room. "Hey Kairi," Sora said, greeting his girlfriend with a smile and a kiss. "How've you been?"

"Good," she replied as Roxas and Naminé shared their own greeting kiss and words, "how was the ride here?"

"Uneventful, but Réodfeax seemed to enjoy outrunning Quickfeet."

Roxas frowned at his brother. "That's only because chocobos like Quickfeet aren't used to racing against your big-boned horse."

"Hey," Sora said with playful seriousness, as if he had told Roxas this same line numerous times, "do not make fun of my horse." He looked around. "So we're in here huh?"

"Yep," Kairi answered. "It's the only place in the house we can be sure of that Alton and Harland won't bother us."

Naminé's studio was a long rectangular room on the second floor of the mansion in its north wing on the west side, measuring twelve metres in width and twenty-eight in length (from an east-west standpoint). It was painted white on three sides, with the side directly across from the ten tall arched windows that faced the west painted a dark wine red. The door was on the southeast edge of the room, and was the only door one could use to enter the room. Naminé had also ensured that it was fitted with a deadbolt, and kept it locked whenever she wasn't inside. The best part was that there was no key for the lock, but that was never an issue for her or Kairi. The windows were individually bordered by thick black curtains with white pinstripes.

In the middle of the room there was a table a metre and a half wide and ten metres long. Normally it held Naminé's paints, brushes, blank canvases, pencils, coloured pencils, crayons, blank sketchbooks, and other assorted items she used in her artwork, but right now it was bare. All of these supplies had been moved into a corner of the room. Normally the room contained two armchairs as well as a small coffee table where the two Princesses would sometimes sit, but now there were ten other comfortable chairs placed around the long table.

Sora nodded and went to the little coffee table and sat down. "Good on that," he said, placing both of his hands behind his head. "It's bad enough that they think I'm insane for wanting to kiss you all the time, but if they knew that we were all in here playing a game I don't know what they'd do."

"I just hope they don't find out," Naminé said. "Because if they do, and if they complain, as much as Ovan respects our privacy and our need to be by ourselves with our friends, either he or Kaylee is going to insist that we let the boys join us."

Roxas visibly paled. "That'd be _hell_."

Riku and Yuffie arrived ten minutes later, and the six of them were comfortably chatting together when Pence, with a bulging backpack, was lead into the room by Agatha. "Thanks Agatha," Riku said to the servant. She gave him an amused look and he quickly added, "Can you make sure that _nobody_ knows that I'm here? Especially the two kids?"

"Don't worry Riku," she said, putting her hand on the handle of the door, pausing only as Naminé's black kitten Bast silently padded her way into the room. "Nobody's going to learn from me that you're a geek."

"I'm not a geek! I'm just trying it out!"

But she had already closed the door.

Pence went to the table and placed his bag down. "Sorry for being late guys, I had to make sure I had all of the books I need."

"It's okay," Yuffie answered. "We were just waiting on you since you're the only one who knows what he's doing." Pence gave them a sheepish look before opening up his bag and pulling out several hardcover books and sheets of paper with black boxes and lines on them.

"So," Naminé began, heading the move towards the table, "how do we play?"

Pence gave her a smile of gratitude that she was at least eager enough to ask the big question. "Well first you have to make a character, and then we can get started."

"Sounds reasonable," Riku noted, "I mean it _is_ a role-playing game."

"Hey!" Naminé exclaimed as she picked up one of the hardcover books Pence had unpacked. "I've got this book."

Everyone looked at Naminé like she had just grown another head. "You've got a copy of the _Monster Manual_?" Pence asked, completely surprised.

"Yeah," Naminé answered, "but it was really just for the pictures and the names of creatures inside of it. I couldn't understand a word of all that ess-tee-are, con, aych-dee stat stuff that was also in there."

"After tonight you will," Pence said, still smiling.

"Alright," Kairi said, looking at all of the books Pence had laid out in confusion. "So… just _how_ do we go about making a character?"

Pence handed each of his six players a pair of sheets, the top one saying 'Dungeons & Dragons Character Record Sheet' in block letters in the top right corner of the page. "First, I'm sorry but I've only got two Player's Handbooks so you'll all have to share until you can get your own, you pick your race and your class. After that we can work on your name, and your height and weight, eye colour, hair, stats, skills, languages, background and all of that lovely stuff."

"Okay…" Roxas said slowly, taking the copy of the _Player's Handbook Core Rulebook I v.3.5_ that Pence was handing to him.

"All of the character creation information is in there in the front of the book," Pence explained, giving the other one to Kairi. "It tells you about the ability scores first, which are your stats, and then the different races, and then the different classes you can play as."

Kairi nodded as she looked at the table of contents. There sure were a lot of subjects that the book covered. Combat, magic, spells, something called 'Alignment', equipment, religion, treasure, adventuring…

"Hey I could play a Dwarf," Sora declared, excitement rising somewhat in his voice.

"Half-elf," Naminé murmured, flipping through pages.

"Hey, I was still reading the contents!" Kairi objected.

"We'll worry about that stuff later Kai," Naminé answered. "Race and class first like Pence said."

Pence smiled and put his hand on another book. "Those aren't the only races though," he said.

Yuffie looked up. "What do you mean?" She spotted the book. "What's that?"

"I've decided that you guys are going to be playing in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting," he declared, "so there's this book, which also has all of the other playable races of the continent of Faerûn on the world of Toril. There's still Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Half-elves, Half-orcs, Halflings, Gnomes and them, but it adds a lot more variety." He pushed _Races of Faerûn_ forward, and Naminé and Sora started looking at it instead of the regular _Player's Handbook_. "And since you're in Forgotten Realms, the gods are also different than the ones in the handbook." He presented _Faiths and Pantheons_.

Yuffie stepped back and took a look at the table. There were more books than just the two _Player's Handbook_s, _Races of Faerûn, Monster Manual, _and _Faiths and Pantheons_; also revealed from Pence's backpack were _Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, Unearthed Arcana, _and _Spell Compendium_; and there were still a few more inside of the backpack that Yuffie couldn't make out! The raven-haired ninja groaned and pushed her palms into her eyes. "Ugh, _so many books_…"

Pence laughed. "You don't have to read and memorize them all."

"We don't?" Roxas asked, hope rising in him as he looked at Pence.

"No," the jet-haired teen replied. "That'd be crazy. The base rules are pretty simple. All of this is just supplementary information, optional rules and additions, and for reference whenever a situation comes up that nobody can remember the rule to." Roxas clapped his hands together and looked up as if he were thanking Poseidon that he didn't have to memorize all of these books this afternoon.

"I don't know," Riku muttered, "should I play a Human or an Elf?"

"Pence!" Yuffie exclaimed. "Which is the best race for a thief?"

"There's no thief class in three point five," Pence answered, "but you could play a Rogue. That's pretty much the same thing."

"Great, Rogue, but what's the best race for a Rogue?"

"Halfling," Pence answered without hesitation.

Sora and Kairi raised their heads simultaneously at Pence's word. "Halfling?" Sora asked. "You mean a Hobbit."

It was Pence's turn to look at them funnily. "No, I mean a Halfling."

"No, a Hobbit," Kairi returned definitively. "Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Bilbo; they called themselves Hobbits. And we met a number of Hobbits of Bree while we were in Middle-earth at the _Prancing Pony_."

"Well…" Sora relented, "they _did_ call Pippin 'Prince of the Halflings' in Minas Tirith."

Pence shook his head. "Okay, they might be Hobbits in Middle-earth, but they are called Halflings in D&D."

"Alright," Yuffie said before either Sora or Kairi could interrupt again. "I'm going to be a Halfling Rogue and steal all your guys' stuff."

"I've decided," Naminé said, standing up straight. "I'm going to be a Moon Half-Elf Wizard."

The others gave Yuffie and Naminé funny looks. "But you guys pretty much are a rogue and a wizard," Kairi laughed.

Yuffie looked affronted. "_Excuse me_ Kairi? I'm the Great _Ninja_ Wielder Yuffie Kisaragi!"

Pence smiled and grabbed something else out from his backpack. "Well, we've got two of you decided, so why don't the rest of you sit back and watch as I help Yuffie and Naminé make their halfling rogue and half-elf wizard?"

Riku nodded his head. "That sounds like a good idea. Plus, I still need to figure out what I want."

"That's fine," Pence said. He gestured to Yuffie and Naminé, and they came over to him. "Here, take these pencils. We'll start with the Abilities. These are your stats. 'Str' is 'Strength', 'Dex' is 'Dexterity', 'Con' is 'Constitution', 'Int' is 'Intelligence', 'Wis' is 'Wisdom', and 'Cha' is 'Charisma'. Strength is self-explanatory, dexterity is how dextrous and agile your character is, so you'll want a high dexterity score Yuffie; constitution is your character's health, stamina, ability to concentrate, and determines the number of hit points you have; intelligence is how well you can learn new things and reason your way through problems, Naminé this is going to be important for your wizard; wisdom is common sense, willpower, perception, intuition; and charisma measures a person's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, physical attractiveness and the sort."

"Wait a second," Sora said. "But a person could also be really attractive, yet is a complete dunce and can't lead anything or goes along with everything somebody else says. Or someone could be completely ugly yet have a strong personality."

"Like Quasimodo," Yuffie said. "He pretty charismatic, but he's still deformed."

Pence looked at Sora long and hard. "There is an Appearance stat that deals with physical attractiveness by itself," he told him.

Naminé looked down. "Well it's not on the sheet."

"That's because it's not in the core rulebook," Pence muttered.

"Well why not?" Riku asked. "I've probably got the highest Appearance stat of all six of us but I'm sure Sora or Naminé has the highest Charisma."

"Hey thanks Riku," said Sora, impossible to tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.

Pence sighed. "The Appearance ability score," he said slowly, enunciating his words perfectly, "is brought out in the supplementary rule book called the_ Book of Erotic Fantasy_."

Everyone stared at him for a few seconds. "The_ Book of Erotic Fantasy_?" asked Roxas, deadpan. "You mean people came up with rules for sex in this game?"

"Yes," Pence said, nodding. "Applying your constitution score with how long your character could keep up having sex, regional taboos, chances of getting diseases or pregnant, spells that enhance appearance, spells that prevent pregnancy, magical lingerie, the infamous chain mail bikini…" He noticed the blank looks that appeared on the faces of Sora, Roxas, and Riku and stopped.

Kairi, Naminé, and Yuffie also noticed and glared at their men. "For the record, _none_ of you are going to make female characters and _none_ of us are going to tell you if our characters have one of those or not," Kairi said sternly.

"I was going to refuse to let them make girl characters anyway," Pence told her.

"I still think we should use that stat," Riku said.

"And that book," Sora added. "It makes things more real."

Pence sighed. "Do all of you want to include the option of sex in the campaign?"

"Yes," chorused the three males.

Pence looked to the girls. Kairi shrugged. "Why not?" she asked rhetorically.

"Alright," Yuffie shrugged.

"No problems here," said Naminé. Sighing again, Pence reached into his backpack, muttering that he thought something like this might happen, and extracted the book. He placed it as far away from Sora, Roxas, and Riku as he could, meaning that he placed it right next to himself.

"Anyway," Pence began again, "those are the _seven_ ability scores. Now, the way that _I_ assign points is by rolling dice." He placed what he had taken from the backpack before he'd been distracted on the table. It was a small clear plastic rectangular case with a black base, and inside were a number of differently shaped dice that had emerald green as a base colour, with whorls of slightly lighter and darker tones mixed in underneath numbers in white. He flipped the case over and pulled off the black base, then gently poured his dice onto the table; and Pence picked up the standard six-sided die. "We roll a d6 four times, and then take away the lowest number. This will give us a score between 3, which is horribly awful, and eighteen, which is great. We then roll again for the other six, because of appearance, and then place all the numbers in. I'll tell you if we need to reroll your stats because they're too low."

"Too low?" Yuffie asked. "Ha, like they'd be too low." Pence shrugged and handed her the die.

_Clack-clack-clack!_

"3!"

_Clack-clack-clack!_

"4!"

_Clack-clack-clack!_

"4!"

_Clack-clack-clack!_

"5! Okay, so four plus four, plus five gets me thirteen," she said.

"Not bad," Sora said, nodding his head.

"Now roll again," Pence told her. Yuffie did so. She rolled 3, 6, 4, and 1 for her second roll; 1, 6, 5, 4 for the third; 5, 3, 6, 6 for the fourth; 5, 6, 4, 4 for her fifth, 5, 1, 1, 5 for her sixth, and 2, 4, 2, 4 for her seventh and final roll.

"So your ability scores are 13, 13, 15, 17, 15, 11, and 10," Pence said. "You rolled pretty good Yuffie."

"Naturally," she said with a smile and a smug shrug as if it was obvious. "So now I just put these into the boxes, right?"

"Yes," Pence told her. "Since you're a rogue you're going to want to put 17 in dexterity, but you're also a halfling and they get a +2 racial bonus to Dex but a -2 racial penalty to strength, so you might want to put your 17 in strength and have it reduced to 15 and put a 15 into Dex and have it bumped to 17."

"Screw that," Yuffie said. "If I get two free points in dexterity then I'll put the 17 there and make it 19. I'm what, three feet tall? I can put the 10 into strength."

"Then you'll take a -1 penalty on any roll you make that requires you to use strength," Pence said while Naminé picked up the die, "including attack rolls."

"What!" Yuffie yelped just as Naminé rolled. "Well forget that plan then. 17 into Dex and 15 into strength."

"Good choice," Riku said. Yuffie continued to scribble down were she was putting her ability scores while Naminé rolled out her own.

"13, 9, 14, 13, 16, 13, 15," Naminé said after she finished rolling.

"Alright," said Pence, "now you're a half-elf, so you don't have to worry about penalties or bonuses."

"What about Appearance?" Sora asked, looking through the _Player's Handbook_. "Are their racial bonuses or penalties on that? It's not in this book, so…"

"Oops, forgot about that," Pence said, grabbing and opening _Book of Erotic Fantasy_. "Uh…no. No modifiers based on race, except that you're going to take a -2 penalty on Appearance whenever dealing with a race that isn't your own unless you're an elf or a fey, because they're universally appealing. Naminé, your character is fine because you're a half-elf, so you're treated as an elf."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for that," she said, marking down her scores.

"Okay," Pence said, "now the rest of you."

Naminé smiled and looked at Kairi. "Want to be a Moon Half-Elf wizard like me Kairi?"

"No way," Kairi answered. "I'm gonna be a Human Ranger."

"I suppose I don't really care what I am," Sora began, "but could I wield a Keyblade?"

"No," Pence said.

"Why not?"

"They aren't in the game."

"But it's possible that this world exists right? So it's possible that _somebody_ in this place has been chosen by a Keyblade before, so it's possible that my character _could_ have a Keyblade."

"Sora, if you were to have a Keyblade I'd probably have to invent an entire new class for you. No Keyblades. Besides, you already are a Keyblade Master, you don't need to RP one."

"Well could I have a sword that I can summon in and out of hammerspace?"

"NO!"

"Fine," Sora huffed, looking at both the _Player's Handbook_ and _Races of Faerûn_. "How about a Shield Dwarf Cleric?"

"You want to be the healer?" Naminé asked, looking up from her sheet.

"Ouch, never mind."

"Oh don't be a dwarf," Kairi said. "If you play a dwarf and I play a human our characters couldn't…"

"Yes they could," Riku broke in while he and Roxas looked through the other handbook. "They just couldn't have babies. Go back to the Sorcerer description."

"Okay…" Sora said slowly. "Ooh, could I be an Avariel?"

Pence looked up from where he was now helping Naminé and Yuffie work on their hit points, ability modifiers, and skill points. "You want to be a winged elf that looks down both literally and figuratively on every other species?"

"Never mind. A Centaur?"

"I don't really want to have you play a race that's stronger at first level than the base races."

"What's an Air Genasi?"

"Off the table Bast!"

"The Genasi are descendents of unions or love children of elemental-related creatures and humanoids. Essentially they're part elemental humans."

"Cool," Sora said eagerly. "I think I might want to be one."

"They are also more powerful than a standard first level character, so they have a level adjustment of plus one, so no."

"Oh come on Pence!"

"No Sora."

"Fine then," grumbled the brunet Keyblade Master. "Male Illuskan Human Fighter."

"Typical," chuckled Riku. Sora shot him a look.

"Well what about you then Riku?"

"I'm thinking of playing a Paladin," Riku told him.

Pence smiled. "Wow Riku, you want to be a champion of justice and goodliness?" He smirked and shrugged. "What race?"

"What race would you suggest?" asked Riku.

"For a Paladin? Aasimar."

"Then I'll be an aasimar," Riku said. Sora frowned and flipped through the book. He opened his mouth wide and looked at Pence in disbelief.

"But it says here that aasimar have a level adjustment of +1 like genasi do," he pointed out, stricken. "How come Riku can play an aasimar but I can't play a genasi?"

"Because Riku's going to be the paladin," Pence answered simply.

"That's DM favouritism Pence," Naminé said, giggling.

"Hey, he's going to be a paladin, so I might as well let him be an aasimar."

"This sucks," Sora pouted.

"Well Roxas," Yuffie said, glancing at the blond, "you're the only one who hasn't picked yet."

The blond Keyblade Wielder smiled wide and placed his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. "Oh, I've chosen all right."

"What?"

"Shield Dwarf Barbarian," he replied.

A knock came on the door. The group looked up and then glanced at one another. Kairi rose and went to the door. "Yes?" she called.

Agatha's voice came through the wooden portal. "Another one's here Kairi." The auburn-haired Princess blinked, and then unlocked the door.

"I changed my mind," Olette said, revealed on the other side of the door with a blush on her face. "I'd like to try my hand at it."

"Great!" Sora cheered as she came in. "The more the merrier, except Pence isn't letting me pick the race I want."

"Just grow up Sora," Pence said.

Naminé looked at their Dungeon Master. "Pence, it says here that I know all level zero spells, but that I can only memorize and cast three in an entire day?"

"Oh no," Pence said quickly. "I've changed that."

The blonde looked at him in shock. "You've _changed_ the rules?"

"Well, I'm using a variant rule," he admitted. "Like the other book, there's a different set of rules for casting spells in _Unearthed Arcana_ that deals with allowing you to memorize a set number of spells, but that instead of having limited casts per day you can cast those memorized spells as many times as you like so long as you have enough spell points."

"I'll take that rule," Naminé said quickly.

"And there's additional spells in _Spell Compendium_ and… the other book in case you want to learn some of them instead of the ones in the _Player's Handbook_."

"Thanks," said Naminé, now cracking that book open and perusing through it as Riku took the die from Kairi and began rolling his stats. "Hm, what about a deity?" She put aside _Spell Compendium_ and picked up _Faiths and Pantheons_ instead. "Hm… Elven Pantheon..._HOLY!_"

"What?" three of them asked simultaneously.

"My Keyblade shares a name with one of these gods!" Naminé exclaimed. "I don't care, I'm picking Sehanine for the deity my half-elf wizard worships. That's just too awesome."

"It would be better if you worshiped Mystra or Corellon Larethian," Pence put in, "since Mystra is the human goddess of magic and Corellon is the head of the elven pantheon and also is the elvish god of magic."

"Nope, don't care Pence. I'm worshipping Sehanine."

"Who would I worship?" Yuffie asked curiously. "I'm a Halfling."

"Brandobaris," Pence said offhandedly, "but Yondalla over all."

"Why Brandobaris?" Yuffie asked.

Naminé flipped to the page. "Master of Stealth, the Irrepressible Scamp," she read.

"Oh yeah," Riku said, "that's going to be a halfling rogue's god."

"Actually," Pence said, scratching his head, "you'd probably worship Dallah Thaun instead, only you'd tell everyone that you worship Yondalla."

"Why's that?" Yuffie asked.

"Dallah Thaun's a really secret halfling goddess that they don't tell other races. She split from Yondalla when Yondalla created the halfling race, but they're still… the same goddess? I can't really remember. Oh which book is that in?" Pence asked himself, rummaging through his backpack. "Main difference between Yondalla and Dallah Thaun though is that if something harms a large number of halflings, Yondalla would support and nurture the survivors while Dallah Thaun would seek vengeance. Now if I could only find that book," he added, pulling three more books out of his bag, but completely unsure if he'd find the description in any of them.

"Okay, so I'm a female Illuskan Human Ranger," Kairi said to herself, writing the information on her sheet. She frowned. "Shit."

"What?" Olette asked.

"One of my ability scores is six," Kairi answered. "And if I'm reading this right, then that means that whenever I have to roll for an action that is related to that ability I'm going to have to subtract two from my roll."

"That's right," Olette said. "Bad luck there Kairi. What do you guys have so far for the party?"

"A Fighter, a Paladin, a Ranger, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Barbarian," Pence answered, leafing through the pages of one of the books. "Nope, it's not in here…"

Yuffie looked up at the newcomer as the kitten Bast jumped back on the table, only to get grabbed and placed back on the floor. "Wait, you mean you know how to play too?"

"Not really," Olette answered. "But I listened enough to Pence as he and a few others in Easy played, when we weren't deployed, to pick up the basics."

"They could use a Cleric," Pence suggested, skimming the table of contents of another book. He looked at the third, shook his head, and then pulled out the last book he'd brought with him. His brown eyes brightened. "Yes, _Races of the Wild_! This is the book! Here, Yuffie, you can even borrow this one if you want. It's got a huge chapter all about halflings in it."

"Cool," the raven-haired girl replied.

"I was just thinking that," Olette answered, meaning the Cleric, "or a Druid or a Bard."

"Why not another Rogue?" Yuffie asked, giving the brunette a twisted grin while cracking open the book Pence gave her.

"I'll be an Elf Ranger," Olette answered instead. Kairi perked up.

"Two Rangers huh?" she asked aloud. "That'll make for some fun times."

"Which sub-race of elf?" Naminé asked.

"Hm?"

"They're in Faerûn," Pence told her, "so which race of elf?"

"Wood Elf," Olette answered easily. Pence nodded his head and glanced around the table, a Male Illuskan Human Fighter, Male Aasimar Paladin, Male Shield Dwarf Barbarian, Female Illuskan Human Ranger, Female Lightfoot Halfling Rogue, Female Moon Half-Elf Wizard, and a Female Wood Elf Ranger.

This was going to make for some interesting nights. Already his mind was looking for an adventure to pit his poor friends on. "Alright," he said, giving Olette a spare set of sheets, "so has everyone got their ability scores rolled out and placed them, except for Olette of course?"

"I think so," Sora said, looking over his character sheet and glancing at the others. Some of their heads nodded, while others were looking into books. Yuffie was pouring over the chapter on halflings in _Races of the Wild_, and Naminé was checking up the spell point variant rule Pence said he was using in _Unearthed Arcana_. The clack of Olette rolling the die resounded through the room.

"Alright," Pence said, "what would you guys like to work on next; skills, physical appearance, names, background, feats, alignment, religion, or equipment?"

"I wants a name," Kairi said quickly. "I can work on what she looks like after I have a name for her."

"I agree," Naminé said, not looking up from the book she was reading.

"Same here," said Roxas. "No Bast," he added while picking up the kitten, "_off_ the table."

"Give her here," Kairi ordered, extending her hands. "She just wants to be petted, don't you Bast?" The black cat started to purr as she sat in Kairi's lap, the red-head now gently stroking the cat's body.

"Wait, what's this Appearance ability you guys have penciled in on your sheets?" Olette asked, looking at Kairi's sheet. "It's not printed in on mine."

"It's a numerical value for how attractive your character is," Riku answered. He grinned. "Mine's 17."

"Where'd that ability come from?" Olette asked curiously. Pence sighed.

"_Book of Erotic Fantasy_."

Olette blinked. "Seriously? We're playing with that?"

"Yes," Kairi said simply.

Olette shrugged. "Okay…"

"Okay, names," Pence declared, switching topics and flipping pages. "Alright, names in Faerûn. On this page are typical names that you'd encounter among the humans of different regions, as well as the other races in Faerûn. Sora, Kairi, since you two are the only ones with human characters and both are Illuskan, I'd suggest that you pick names from here."

"Okay," Sora said, standing up and moving to get a better look at the list. He noticed that there were a lot of different names put down. Chondathan men he saw had names along the lines of Darvin, Evundur, Grim, Helm, and Morn; while their women were Esvele, Kerri, Miri, or Tessele. Dwarves had Barundar, Khondar, and Thorik among others for males, while females were Belmara, Kiira, and Tace. None of them were Illuskan humans though.

"I like Westra," Kairi declared. She bit her bottom lip. "But I don't really want to take a name straight out of the book. Hm… Eletra? Eletra Greenwood? Yes, that'll be it. My ranger's name is Eletra Greenwood."

"Stor Stormwind," Sora replied with a grin, pulling two names right out of the book. "Good strong name for a fighter."

"Pence," Riku said with a bit of annoyance. "There aren't any names in here for aasimar characters."

"Or half-elves," Naminé added.

"Aasimar are usually from Mulhorand," Pence said, "and half-elves can be from anywhere like humans. Pick a home region and figure out a name from there."

"Well I figure we'd want to at least be close by wherever Illuskans are," Riku mentioned. "Can we have a map?"

"Yeah, here," Pence said, pulling a single copy of a map of Faerûn out of his backpack. "Be careful, because that's the only map I've got. Illuskan humans generally live in The North, which is up here in the northwest of the world, as well as in the city and region of Silverymoon, called the Gem of the North, among the Silver Marches; and the City of Splendours, Waterdeep."

"Well if they're up here," Riku began, pointing at the dot that was labelled Silverymoon, "and I'm a paladin, and the paladin class says that one of its home regions is Silverymoon, then I'll pick that as my home region."

"Mind telling me how an aasimar managed to get from Mulhorand to Silverymoon?"

"I walked," Riku answered, deadpan.

"You _walked_ all the way across the world when you were a baby?"

"Then I was born there smartass. It doesn't say that _all_ aasimar have to be from Mulhorthong now does it?"

"It's 'Mulhorand'."

"Whatever. My name's going to be Johnny C. Norris, by the way."

Pence covered his face with his hand. "That's _not_ a Faerûnian name…" he groaned.

"So?" Riku asked. "It's my character."

"Well I'll be…" Naminé said slowly, "I'm going to be Innohnine Moonfall."

"Balin Stoneaxe," Roxas said gruffly, already doing his best to imitate the rough accent of the dwarves. Sora and Kairi looked at him in wonder for the choice of his character's first name. They'd told their stories of course, and were surprised and a little touched that Roxas would choose to name his dwarf character after Balin, son of Fundin.

Yuffie frowned slightly. She was still looking at halflings in _Races of the Wild_. "Hey Pence, what's with this d20 and d% thing on this name generator?"

"Oh," he said, his face brightening after Riku's thinly veiled Chuck Norris tribute paladin. "That's a twenty-sided die and a combination of two ten-sided dice, one with the numbers zero through nine on it and the other with zero-zero to ninety. Here, want to use the table?"

"Sure," Yuffie said as she took and examined the three dice Pence handed her. "Gives my halfling a colourful name, don't you think?" She looked at Riku as she said this. He couldn't help but smile.

"Talindra Amalith," Olette declared, writing down her elf's name.

"Okay," Yuffie said, sticking her tongue out slightly after she rolled the d20 once and the d% four times, "so my halfling rogue is named Furindy Penelibaris." She grinned at the looks the others were giving her zany outlandish name. "Want to know what it means?" she asked.

"Sure," Sora offered.

"It means 'snug woodland and unlucky crafter'," Yuffie answered.

That got a few laughs out of the others. "Snug woodland?" Kairi asked.

Pence laughed too, but gave Yuffie a slightly pleading look. "Maybe not something so outlandish Yuffie. Would a name like… Meaghan Tallfellows work?"

"Oh hell no," Yuffie replied earnestly, still smiling however, "my halfling is Furindy Penelibaris!"

Pence shook his head and looked at the clock. It was already getting close to five in the afternoon. He'd forgotten just how long character creation took. "Okay, so we're got your character names, races, classes, and ability scores. Think maybe we can do alignment and then we'll call it a day and you can work on physical descriptions on your own?"

"Sounds like an idea," Kairi agreed, continuing to pet Bast. The kitten had fallen asleep in her lap. "What is alignment?"

"It's your character's standpoint in life," Olette answered. "It's classically divided into six: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic; and Good, Neutral, and Evil."

"What do those mean?" Roxas asked. "I get that we're all Lawful Good but—"

Pence laughed. "Are you really Roxas? If you had to beat up a guard and take his clothes in order to sneak around to free a bunch of captured people, would you do it?"

"Of course," Roxas said.

"Then you're not Lawful," Pence told him.

"And you need your head examined if you think _I'm_ Lawful," Yuffie added.

"I don't think that I'm going to have to establish differences between Good, Evil, and Neutral," Pence said, "but here (he grabbed one of the _Player's Handbook_s), Lawful vs. Chaotic. Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favour new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

""Law" implies honour, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closemindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.

""Chaos" implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them.

"Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.

"Devotion to law or chaos may be a conscious choice, but more often it is a personality trait that is recognized rather than being chosen. Neutrality on the lawful–chaotic axis is usually simply a middle state, a state of not feeling compelled toward one side or the other. Some few such neutrals, however, espouse neutrality as superior to law or chaos, regarding each as an extreme with its own blind spots and drawbacks.

"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic."

"Never would have guessed that," Naminé said, giving the kitty sleeping on her sister's lap a fond look.

"And…" Olette said, looking at the other copy of the handbook, "it says here in this table that Dwarves are generally Lawful Good, as are Paladins; Elves and Rangers are Chaotic Good; Wizards are Lawful Neutral; Humans and Halflings are Neutral; and Half-elves, Barbarians, and Rogues are Chaotic Neutral."

"Aasimar?" Riku asked.

"You're lawful good," Pence said flatly.

"Why am I lawful good?" Riku asked.

"Because you're playing a paladin; you're lawful good. Do you think you can handle being a shining example of goodliness and justice?"

Riku laughed. "Johnny C. Norris doesn't follow laws; laws are made so that others are more like him." A few groans and rolling eyes met his joke along with a laugh or two, so Riku considered it a success.

"Well, I'll be chaotic good," Kairi said. "Seems like the best option for my ranger."

"Same here," added Olette.

"Chaotic neutral," Yuffie declared with a devious smile on her face.

"Why do I feel as if she's going to steal all of our shit while we sleep?" Sora asked with a little bit of anxiety.

"Don't worry," Riku said. "If she tries it, I'll backhand her until she gives our stuff back."

"And then I'll cut your purse strings," Yuffie returned.

"Sora, Roxas, Naminé, what about you guys?" Kairi asked.

"I think neutral good for my fighter," Sora told them. "Still good, but not really biased towards order."

"You know," Kairi mentioned, "if anything I think us Keyblade Wielders are all chaotic good."

"I'd have to agree," Pence said whilst nodding. "Roxas? Naminé?"

Naminé's answer came slowly while Roxas remained silent. "I think… lawful neutral," Naminé said at last. "She's motivated by her own needs and ambition, which also come from being a half-elf, but upholds the order of society without giving in to the needs of the people she doesn't know." Pence nodded approvingly.

"I don't know!" Roxas groaned exasperatedly. "I'm a dwarf, which means I'm lawful good, but I'm also a barbarian, which is chaotic neutral! How am I supposed to make sense of this?"

"You're a dwarf," Pence told him quickly and reassuringly. "Your character's upbringing of being a dwarf is more important to him than his class as a barbarian. You have undying loyalty to your kin and your king, but being a barbarian makes you a bit more resistant against some rules and traditions. I'd call a dwarf barbarian neutral good at best."

"Okay," Roxas repeated, "neutral good."

Pence nodded and Kairi checked the time. She groaned and stretched before pushing Bast off of her lap. "Well, apparently that's _most_ of the character creation done, since we still don't have backstory, physical description, skills, equipment, or whatever the heck feats are called."

"I can do most of that for you guys if you want," Pence offered. "Since I know what would be best for your classes and everything."

"No, we'll do it on our own next time," Sora answered. "But, it _is_ getting close to supper time. Hey, if we don't have any homework tomorrow, how about we finish this up then?"

"Sure," Naminé agreed, nodding her head. "You guys want to stay for supper?"

"Did you tell Helia that we'd be here for supper?" Yuffie asked.

Both Princesses winced. "Oop."

"Oh well," Riku sighed. "We'll work on it later. Here, Pence, hold onto my sheets will you? I don't want any random house guests Yuffie and I might have finding them."

Pence rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. But next time I want all of you guys to at least have a _Player's Handbook_ and a set of dice like mine."

"Where can we get them?" asked Olette, rolling one of the green dice around in her fingers.

"Any big comic book or otherwise 'Nerdvannah' store," Pence told them, packing his things away. The black-haired boy looked at all of them again.

Stor Stormwind, the male neutral good Illuskan human fighter, played by Sora.

Furindy Penelibaris, the female chaotic neutral Lightfoot halfling rogue, played by Yuffie.

Innohnine Moonfall, the female lawful neutral moon half-elf wizard, played by Naminé.

Eletra Greenwood, the female chaotic good Illuskan human ranger, played by Kairi.

Talindra Amalith, the female chaotic good wood elf ranger, played by Olette.

Johnny C. Norris, the male aasimar paladin, played by Riku.

Balin Stoneaxe, the male neutral good shield dwarf barbarian, played by Roxas.

Pence smiled again. A fighter, two rangers, a rogue, a wizard, a paladin, and a barbarian were all brought together in one group for him. This was certainly going to be a very interesting party, especially since none of them could heal yet!

-A-D-

_Well that's about it for the first chapter. Shown is most of the character creation process, and actually the quickest to go through. Shopping for equipment takes the most time. I'm not writing down all of that here though. There are also so many other details involving creating characters in the Forgotten Realms that I'm just going to 'skip' over them here._

_Anyway, if you're reading this still I hope that you're enjoying it and will continue to enjoy reading about Sora and the gang role-playing heroes, even though they are heroes themselves!_

_In other news, I have a Facebook group set up for fans of **The Annals of Darkness**. Click on the link in my profile to ask to join if you feel so inclined._

_**May the Grace of the Valar Protect You**_

_Shire Folk_


	2. Shopping

_Shire: "You're all still with me here? For serious? Good! I decided to continue with showing the rest of character creation, or at least feats, skills, and shopping. To Ikaru Kakou, who has disabled PMs, shopping does take the most time in my experience, because you do it in conjunction with feat selection. For instance, a Fighter is proficient in all simple and martial weapons and in all shields and gets a bonus feat for being a fighter, so a human fighter starts off with three feats he/she can select. Now, you take a look at the equipment list after having rolled for starting gold and say to yourself, "Now, what do I want?" keeping in mind that you still need money for additional clothes and amenities useful for adventuring (ten-foot pole, pot, bedroll, waterskin…), and you also need to consider whether or not you are going to require a pack animal such as a donkey, or if you are going to have a horse. If you are going to have a horse and want to fight on horseback eventually, you'll also want to take mounted feats and might want focus in a weapon such as a lance, but lances also take a -2 penalty on enemies within 10' because they have reach._

"_In summary, shopping CAN take forever. And yes, while Ninja is the first class in Complete Adventurer, Pence would rather have Yuffie, newbie to the game, only deal with her class features through referencing the Player's Handbook like the other six so that they're all on the same page. The only different thing is going to be Naminé and the others when they get spells due to the Unearthed Arcana influence. Plus, Johnny C. Norris will get Lay on Hands at level 2, so he'll be able to heal 2 points of damage multiplied by his Cha mod (which I believe is +3). Now disclaimer?"_

_Sora: "You're a geek."_

_Shire: "Yes, and?"_

_Sora: "Just saying. This geek doesn't own us, Disney, Final Fantasy, or the Forgotten Realms, although he does own the character sheets we're making up."_

-A-D-

**Tables of the Keyblade**

Chapter II: Shopping

"Hold on a second!" Kairi said as Pence prepared to pack away his books. "Why don't we finish this off tonight so that we can start actually playing later?"

"But you didn't tell Helia to cook for us," Riku pointed out.

"Phsh, we can order in pizza," Kairi told him flippantly.

Pence shrugged thoughtfully and ceased in putting his books and dice away. They were more eager to do this than he'd thought. "Okay. So, physical description, feats, skills, or shopping first?"

Kairi shook her head and stood up. "Actually, first I'm going to let them know that we won't be coming down for supper and will be ordering pizza. Wait up for me." The auburn-haired princess went to the door and quickly opened it and slipped out. She quietly shut the door, glancing up and down the hallway. Neither Alton nor Harland were in sight.

Sighing in relief, Kairi summoned her white Keyblade, Crowning Flame, into her right hand and tapped the door with it. She heard the lock click on the other side. This was the only way she and Naminé could be sure that the kids wouldn't enter Naminé's art studio, by having the door's lock built so that it could only be unlocked from the inside unless a person carried a Keyblade.

Kairi smiled slightly in satisfaction that their secret was still secure—beyond Hayner, Selphie, Tidus, Wakka, and Agatha—and went down the carpeted hall in her sock feet until she reached the main stairs at the centre of the house. She had just gotten to the landing when two little persons who had been thundering up the stairs in a race collided with her. Kairi shouted in distress and slight pain as she fell onto her bum and back.

"Oh Kaipee!" Alton said merrily, grinning up at her face from a spot just beneath her breasts on top of her pink t-shirt, Harland rolling off of his older brother and onto the carpet, giggling like a maniac. "We were just looking for you and Pantiné."

The pain left her and Kairi's head shot up. "Hey!" she snarled. "What have we said about calling us that?"

"I can't remember," Alton said innocently, even though Kairi knew as much as he did that she and Naminé scolded him and his brother for those nicknames at least twice a day.

Sometimes she really wanted to punch the two of them right in the nose.

"Mommy told us to get you two and the robot and Roxas for supper," Harland said.

Fire glinted in Kairi's eyes, and she shot Harland a look so sharp he recoiled as if her glance had been a sword's blade. Alton leapt off of her chest as if shocked. "What was that?" she growled in a low tone, her voice reminding them that she'd killed before and could kill again. Kairi could take them calling her Kaipee because of how juvenile they were, she could take them calling her sister Pantiné and Agatha Agabum because of their habit of unconsciously stripping down to their underwear when they felt too warm because of the crazy ice magic training Ur had put them through…

But one thing she'd stamp out of them was calling Sora a robot, even if she had to beat them to an inch from death.

"Mom said to get you and Naminé and Sora and Roxas for supper," Alton repeated, cowering with his brother. They consistently forgot just how scary their new sisters could be when roused.

Kairi stood, and when she looked at the two boys again it was with a smile. She'd flipped the switch. "Good," she said brightly. "That's what I thought you said. Anyway, you can tell Kaylee and Ovan that we're sorry but we won't be coming down for supper tonight. We're doing something with our friends and want to finish it tonight so we're ordering pizza."

The very word 'pizza' had that magic effect on the boys that made them forget that Kairi had implied that she had no qualms in killing them to protect her man's honour just moments before. "Pizza?" Harland asked. "Can we have a slice? Please? Pretty please Kairi?"

"With whipped cream and a cherry on top?" Alton pleaded. "And if you're having a pizza and movie party can we watch too?"

"No, we're not having a movie party and no, you can't come," Kairi said firmly.

"Well then what are you doing? And can we still have pizza?"

"What are we doing?"

Alton nodded. "Yeah, what are you doing Your Lady Princess Kairi, the beautiful Wielder of Light and most esteemed Dragon Knight of Radiant Garden?"

The fact that he was trying to butter her up barely a minute after calling her 'Kaipee' only solidified how much he and his brother wanted pizza. "What we're doing," she repeated, "we're doing…" What were they doing? There was no way she could tell them that they were playing Dungeons and Dragons. Oh Light, what were they doing?

"Math!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

"Math?" Alton and Harland repeated.

"And anthropology!" she elaborated. "And mythology! Tough level high school homework. You wouldn't be interested in it at all. We need all the pizza and cockatrice wings and coke we can get to keep our energy up while we're doing it, so we won't be down for supper. Okay?"

"Can we have—?"

"No," Kairi answered simply, turning back down towards the studio. She could hear them thundering after her. Even on carpet, those two were never quiet. She was forced to stop as weight suddenly appeared around her ankles.

"Can we please, please, please have some pizza Your Highness?" the two pleaded, cute and innocent faces looking up at the princess. "We'll do anything."

Kairi had been about to retort 'no' when she stopped herself. Twisting around to look at the pair latched onto her legs, Kairi looked down. Both of them were looking up at her with smiles on their faces.

Except, they weren't exactly looking up at her _face_, their eyes were being drawn to underneath the white miniskirt she was wearing. Angry blood filled all the veins and arteries and capillaries beneath the skin of her cheeks and Kairi screamed, "You little perverts!" before kicking each of them off, sending the boys flying twelve feet down the hall until they landed and rolled on the carpet. Neither seemed to care about the bruises that would later form on their bodies, they just rolled and laughed and giggled. Incensed, Kairi tromped back to the studio.

She'd just taken out her Keyblade and unlocked the door when a voice called from behind her. "Wait!" Kairi recognized the voice as Agatha's and so paused, turning to look at the handmaiden of her sister. "If you call for the pizza," she said, "I'll wait for it at the door and call you when it gets here, but could I come in with you guys and have some?"

Kairi's eyes widened in slight surprise before she grinned. "Want to try your hand at playing Agatha?"

"No," the nineteen-year-old replied vehemently. "I just want some pizza and to get _away_ from those two. I'll watch you guys and laugh though." Kairi nodded.

"Okay, come in. You can help us order." Agatha smiled and followed Kairi into the room, shutting the door behind the two.

"—you're mad. Salt and pepper are the best."

"No Sora, you're crazy," Yuffie fired back. "Teriyaki sauce is the best thing to put on cockatrice wings!"

"I prefer honey garlic," Naminé said, the group of six pouring over a take-out menu from their favourite pizza place.

"Naminé," Kairi began as she and Agatha approached the table, all the sheets, pencils, and books lying abandoned for the moment. "You know that you took your shirt off right?"

"Yeah, they told me," the blonde replied nonchalantly, wearing only a simple black bra on her chest above her beige short shorts, her white shirt lying in a rumpled pile on the other side of the room. "But it's hot and everyone here's seen me in my underwear anyway so who really cares?"

"I care," Roxas muttered under his breath, not that anyone heard his complaint.

"So one large cheese, one large ham and pineapple, one large meat lover's, one large vegetarian, and one large steak and cheese," Riku asked aloud, "with three two-litre cokes and two dozen wings?"

"Half of them salt and pepper," Sora insisted.

"No, hot and spicy!" Roxas countered. The brothers pressed their foreheads together.

"Salt and pepper!"

"Hot and spicy!"

"Salt and pepper!"

"Hot and spicy!"

"Roxas," Sora growled, "don't make me pull rank on you."

"We're not doing any Keyblade-related stuff Sora, you can't pull rank on me like that."

"Just watch me."

Agatha sighed and went up to the two sixteen-year-olds. Grabbing each of them by a fistful of their insane spiky hairstyles, she pulled their heads back before slamming them together again. "Honey garlic," the oldest of the eight people currently gathered in the room declared. "All of them."

"Honey garlic it is," Riku agreed.

"Good choice," said Olette, giggling a little at the dazed looks on Sora and Roxas.

-A-D-

"Okay," Pence said, grabbing a slice of cheese as Riku closed the door and Sora locked it, the last of their supplies inside the studio, "so have you guys come up with physical descriptions for your characters yet?"

"I have," Kairi said. "Eletra Greenwood is nineteen years old, five feet and nine inches tall, one hundred and thirty pounds, fair-skinned, with blue eyes and shoulder-length raven-black hair which she keeps in a braid down the back of her neck."

"Pretty nice," Sora said, nodding his head.

"Yeah," Kairi said, smiling, "and her appearance stat is fourteen. So she is pretty. Oh, and she also has a small green, brown, and blue tattoo of a butterfly on her left upper arm."

"Thinking of getting a tat Kairi?" Roxas asked.

She blushed and shrugged. "Well maybe…"

"We can work on what they look like on our own," Riku said. "Johnny C. Norris wants his weapons."

Sora nodded in agreement. "Especially since my fighter can't have a Keyblade."

"Sora, if you shut up about the Keyblade, I'll let you have a mastercraft longsword as part of your staring gear even though you're not playing a preferred class of Silverymoon," Pence told him.

"Alright!" Sora fist-pumped. "What's a mastercraft longsword?"

"A +1 longsword. It adds one to every attack roll you make, but not every damage roll you make. A magic +1 longsword adds one to both."

"What's the difference between an attack roll and a damage roll?" Yuffie asked.

"An attack roll is when you roll a d20 to see whether or not your attack actually hits the enemy or not. You only roll for damage if your attack roll succeeds," Olette replied.

"Okay…" Kairi said, in between gnawing bites on her honey garlic wing piece. She loved cockatrice wings, especially since they were almost twice the size of a chicken wing; lots more meat on the bones. "So I was thinking, should I even get a melee weapon for my ranger? I've got a bow right?"

Pence nodded his head, and swallowed. He took a sip from the cup he'd poured his pop into. "Since you're from Silverymoon and Ranger is a preferred class for that region, you can actually start with a mastercraft longbow instead of having to buy one."

"Buy one?" Roxas asked incredulously through a mouthful of meat lover's pizza. "You men we can't jus haf our weapons?"

Pence shook his head. "Have to roll for starting gold and then buy them," he answered. "After that, you can spend your gold on whatever you want."

The group of seven nodded while Agatha hung back, half keeping Bast from jumping in on anyone or their pizza boxes. They ate and drank while each looked over both the list of equipment in the _Player's Handbook, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting_ (which Pence finally relented to show them so they could look at the regional equipment available to them), and _Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue_.

"Want to roll for starting gold?" Pence asked after a few more minutes, in which there were mutterings and grumblings about what sort of weapons each one would like to have or other pieces of equipment.

"Sure," Sora said. He took another two big bites of his pizza and chewed a little before swallowing. The brunet took a swig from his pop. "What do I roll?"

"You're a fighter, so you'll roll a d4 six times and then multiply it by ten," Pence answered. The jet-haired teen set his second slice aside on a napkin and wiped his hand on his jeans before handing Sora the four-sided pyramidal die.

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Four."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Eight."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Nine."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Eleven."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Fifteen."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Nineteen. So, I get one hundred and ninety gold then right?"

Pence looked at Sora's rolls in partial amazement. "Yes, yes you do. That's rolling really well Sora. I'm kinda considering withdrawing my offer to give you a mastercraft longsword for free to shut you up on the Keyblade."

"What's the difference between a mastercraft longsword and a regular one besides the +1?" asked Sora.

"Three hundred gold pieces," Pence answered. Sora's jaw dropped and eyes around the table widened.

"Three hundred gold?" Naminé asked, astounded.

"Hey, it's mastercraft."

Sora cupped his hands together. "May I please have that mastercraft sword, oh great and powerful dungeon master?"

Pence rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that Sora pleading for something from his was something he could get used to. "Sure, fine."

"Yippee!" cried Sora. "Okay, so I've got 190gp and a mastercraft longsword. Now then, what else do I want for my fighter?"

"While he's going through the shopping list why don't the rest of you roll for gold?" Pence asked.

They did so. Riku rolled 130gp, Kairi earned herself 140gp and Olette 160gp for the two rangers, Roxas took away 100gp for his rolls and Naminé wound up with only 70gp. Yuffie really lucked out though, and declared that her halfling rogue was from the city of Waterdeep and so claimed 300gp from the regional equipment she was permitted as well as a further 90gp from rolling Pence's four-sided die.

"Okay," Riku said, having decided sooner than Sora after consultations with Pence. "Johnny C. Norris will take the mastercraft chain shirt as my regional equipment for being a paladin from Silverymoon, and that will give me an armour class bonus of +4, and I'll also buy a greatsword for 50gp."

"What's armour class again?" Naminé asked.

"The chance for an enemy to not hit you," Pence said. "When you attack, your attack roll has to be higher than an enemy's AC, and when they attack it needs to be higher than your AC to hit you and deal damage. Stor, Johnny, and Balin should probably have higher ACs because they're the front line fighters."

"Bah," Roxas said. "Balin doesn't really need a high AC. He's a barbarian. Besides, I'm taking the dwarven waraxe as my regional gear."

"What region is your dwarf from?" Pence asked.

"Dwarf, shield," Roxas answered. "It says I can declare that my dwarf's region is his race, even though he's from that Silverymoon city place."

"But he's a barbarian," Pence muttered, frowning. "I don't think they can…"

"It says for favoured regions for barbarians that some shield dwarves become them," Roxas argued. "So that means that I can pick from the dwarf, shield equipment, right?"

"I'll allow it," Pence said after a second. "That's mastercraft then?"

"Yes."

"Seems all you guys are taking mastercraft if you can except for Yuffie."

"Why wouldn't we?" Naminé asked. "If we get a bonus for it, why wouldn't we take something offered like that?"

"Okay, I've decided," Sora declared. "I'm going to have that longsword, thanks Pence, but I'm also going to take a composite longbow and forty arrows, a heavy wooden shield, and scale mail."

"Alright," Kairi noted as Sora wrote this information down on his sheet while she double checked the prices. "So you're spending… one hundred on the bow, fifty on the armour, seven on the shield and two on the arrows, one hundred fifty-nine gold out of your one hundred ninety."

"Yeah."

"So you have thirty-one pieces left."

"Yes Kairi, I know."

"And your character still doesn't have any clothes."

"Yes Kairi, I know; I'm on it. What about you? Does your ranger prefer to run around the woods naked?"

"Don't worry," she groaned back, "I'm going to buy clothes."

"Just so long as your ranger doesn't buy too many outfits Kairi," Yuffie told her. "She doesn't need ballroom dancing clothes while out in the middle of the woods."

"But you never know when you might want fancy clothes," Kairi protested. "You never know when you might be invited into the palace of a king and will want to wear clothes that don't have mud and dirt all over them."

"I'm pretty sure Lady Alustriel doesn't care if you come before her dressed like the forester your character is Kairi," Pence said. He grinned. "But she might care if you're naked."

"Fine," Kairi grumbled. "I won't blow all my gold on clothes."

"So I'll get a traveller's outfit," Sora declared. "That's got boots, wool breeches, a belt, a shirt which I'll take with a vest since it doesn't increase the price, and a cloak. All of that is one gold. And at the same time, I'll buy…" he looked in _Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue_, "leather gauntlets for two gold, and then a backpack, a bedroll, three candles, flint and steel, a hooded lantern, a mug, two flasks of oil, wait, forget the lantern and oil but I will take a flask, an iron pot, fifty feet of hemp rope, a belt pouch, a sack, a signal whistle, four torches, and a whetstone. So that's… two gold for the backpack, one silver for the bedroll, three copper for the candles, three copper for the flask, one gold for the flint and steel, two copper for the mug, five silver for the pot, one gold for the belt pouch, one gold for the rope, one silver for the sack, eight silver for the whistle, four copper for the torches, and two copper for the whetstone. Including the clothes, that's 8gp, 15sp, and 14cp."

"No waterskin?" Pence asked him. "You're going to adventure without a means to carry water?"

"Oops," Sora mumbled sheepishly. "I'll add in two waterskins then. There. Ten gold, fifteen silver, and fourteen copper is my total."

"Money in this is in tens right?" Naminé asked. "Ten copper to a silver and ten silver to a gold?" Pence nodded. "So in other words, you're spending eleven gold, six silver, and four copper. So you'll have nineteen gold, three silver, and six copper left."

"I think that's enough to stand on," Sora replied, "looking at these prices."

"So besides my greatsword," said Riku. "Johnny C. Norris is going to take a traveler's outfit as well, along with a lot of the same things that Stor is getting, but he'll also have a healer's kit for fifty gold, the hooded lantern and two pints of oil for seven gold pieces and two silver, a map case, a vial of ink, an inkpen, five pieces of parchment, and a sledge; and four javelins. So it cost Stor Stormwind ten gold pieces, fifteen silver pieces, and fourteen copper pieces for his gear, and it'll cost Johnny C. Norris another… fifty for the kit, fifty-seven with the lantern, fifty-eight with the map case, sixty-six with the ink, sixty-seven with the sledge, seventy-one with the javelins… crap, I don't have enough money. Scratch the javelins, so it'll cost me seventy-seven gold, twenty-six silver, and fourteen copper. Seventy-nine gold, seven silver, and four copper out of my eighty gold."

Roxas gave a low whistle. "Wow, the paladin's broke."

"Johnny C. Norris also has a greatsword," Riku reminded him.

"Johnny C. Norris also has no money for a day's worth of trail rations," Pence corrected him. "So you might want to think of dropping some of that stuff so that you can at least get some food."

"Johnny C. Norris doesn't need to buy food, food flocks to him in the wilderness."

"You don't have survival as a class skill."

"I'm pretty sure either one of our rangers would hunt for him if he asked nicely," Riku put out, looking at Kairi and Olette. They shared sceptical looks with one another. "His appearance is seventeen," he reminded them with a cheeky grin.

"Riku just drop the lantern and oil," Pence told him. "Then you'll at least have some spending money for food when you guys have to go out adventuring."

"Fine, I'll drop the lantern and oil. That'll free up seven gold and two silver for food. I still say I could get the rangers to hunt for me."

"You probably could, but don't risk it," Yuffie said.

In the back at the coffee table, Agatha just shook her head as she helped herself to more pizza. "My masters are such geeks," she sighed, even though she was smiling lovingly. There came a knock on the door. "Nobody's in here!" she called.

"Kairi, Naminé," called a male voice, "open this door please."

The twin princesses glanced at each other. It was their godfather, Ovan Ramius. "I'll go," Kairi said quickly, "you're shopping right now." Most of the activity within the room ceased as numerous eyes followed the auburn-haired girl to the door at the edge of the room. "Yes?" Kairi asked, opening the door up a crack.

"How's your homework coming along?" Ovan asked. "The boys said that it was math, and ancordopy and mythology?"

"Anthropology," Kairi politely corrected him, "and it's coming along very well."

The man frowned. "Funny, I don't remember anthropology being taught in high schools these days." A little bit of panic crossed through Kairi's mind.

"We're studying it on our own," she replied quickly. He nodded his head from behind the door, just catching sight of the books open on the table.

"Good. It's a good thing for a future queen to know," he remarked, looking towards Naminé through the crack of the door. "Just make sure that you and your friends aren't up too late hanging out when you're done. Oh, and Kairi," the girl stopped as she had begun to close the door.

"Yes?" she asked cautiously.

"They also told me that you kicked them across the hallway."

At this Kairi frowned and spoke with complete justification. "They looked up my skirt," she grumbled with a grimace. Ovan nodded his head as if he'd thought that it was something like that, and bid her once again that they not stay up too late. Kairi nodded and shut the door before locking it and listening. She could hear his feet padding away from the doorway.

"Good, he believed it," she said. "And he even saw the books."

"He saw the books open to text and tables without seeing their covers," Olette said, "and from that distance he wouldn't have been able to read any of it."

"True," Kairi agreed. She took another slice of vegetarian.

"Pence, would I really need a weapon?" Naminé asked. "I mean, I'm a wizard."

"You're a level one wizard," Pence told her flatly. "Just what can you do?"

"Well, I have all cantrips and I can choose any four first level spells from the _Player's Handbook_, _Book of Erotic Fantasy_, and _Spell Compendium_ right?"

Pence frowned slightly. "Run the first level spells you want by me and I'll see if you can have them or not."

"Orb of Cold (lesser), Ray of Flame, Block the Seed, and Unseen Servant."

Pence flipped through the books. He took another bite of his pizza. "Yeah, okay, you can have those four. Even so, you're going to want a weapon because you'll only start with three spell points, so you'll only have three casts of any two first level spells for the whole day and five casts of any four cantrips. That probably won't be enough for an encounter, so you will want a weapon."

Naminé sighed. "Great. But then again, I am level one. Okay, so weapons. I'm proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, and quarterstaff, and I'm not proficient with any armours or shields. I'm from Silverymoon with a preferred class, but I'm not proficient with anything being offered as extra starting equipment, so I'll take the mastercraft chain shirt because it's being offered but I'll sell it back for half of its listed price. A mastercraft chain shirt would cost… 250gp, so I'll get 125gp back from it to start with 215gp. Now, using that, I'll buy a light crossbow for 35gp and thirty bolts for 3gp, and I'll take a quarterstaff because it's free and a dagger for 2gp. Wait, can I switch out Ray of Flame for Magic Weapon?"

"Yes," Pence told her.

"Okay," Naminé said, erasing Ray of Flame from her list of spells and writing in Magic Weapon. "I'll have a scholar's outfit, a backpack, a bedroll, a tent, five candles, a spellbook, two vials of ink, three inkpens, a hooded lantern, two flasks of oil, a bottle of wine and a glass, a dozen sheets of paper, six pitons for my tent and a hammer, a half-pound of soap, a waterskin, two sunrods and six tindertwigs, an hourglass, a pony and riding saddle, two saddlebags, black linen hosiery and black hose supporters, insect netting for the tent, fine linen gloves, a red girdle with gold floral embroidery, silver silk dancing shoes, and dark brown hard low boots; oh, and a linen purse with wire mesh netting to keep thieves from cutting it and the letters 'I' and 'M' embroidered on the purse."

"A pony?" Yuffie laughed. "Well, looks like miss wizard here enjoys the comfy life."

"And she blows her money on clothes and shoes," Kairi exclaimed.

"She probably does," Pence muttered. "It costs her one thousand gold pieces a year for tuition at The Lady's College in Silverymoon as a level one wizard."

Naminé shrugged. "Well let's see how much I've got left. I started with 215gp." She muttered to herself as she did the math. "Now I've got 13gp and 2sp," she declared. Her mind started to whirl. "Crap. If I've got loads of tuition to pay each year, I'm going to have to find a way to get another thousand gold pieces for the next year's tuition."

"Hence adventuring," Riku told her.

"Or less partying," Kairi added with a smile. Naminé stuck her tongue out at her sister.

"You might gain a level," Pence said, "and then you'd need 1,500gp."

Naminé squealed in distress.

"Wait a sec," Olette said. "You said that you started with 70gp and gained 125gp from selling back the chain shirt?"

"Yes," Naminé said.

"Then you didn't have 215gp, you had 195gp. Going off that, you're six gold and eight silver in debt."

"Then I'll change it from having bought and resold a mastercraft chain shirt for 125gp from its cost of 250gp, and I'll take the mastercraft longbow for 375gp and sell it back for 187gp and 5sp. So adding that to my original 70gp gives me 257gp and 5sp, which is 42gp and 5sp more than what I believed to have had before, so if I don't buy anything else, which I won't, I'll still have 55gp and 2sp."

"And all that means is that you have a bit more money in your pocket," Sora said. "So you won't have to worry so much about being broke, like Riku."

"Hey, I'm not broke anymore," Riku returned.

The other party members all purchased somewhat the same items, backpacks, bedrolls, waterskins, travelling clothes, torches and the like. Innohnine was still the only one to keep an animal, and Furindy took a small mandolin and remained with the largest amount of gold—but she'd also started with the greatest amount—and Balin Stoneaxe was taking with him a gallon of ale in a jug.

"He's a dwarf," Roxas justified. "He likes his drink!"

"Cheers to the dwarf!" Sora shouted. "We can all have a drink after battle."

"You guys can have your ale," Naminé said politely, "but my wizard will drink slowly from her bottle of wine."

"Who says that we'll let you bring your wine?" Roxas asked.

"Well who says that your dwarf can bring along his cask of ale?" Naminé countered. "Or that he'll even be able to carry it?"

"I don't have too much weight on me," Roxas replied dismissively.

"But will you be able to carry it?" Pence asked. "You don't have a baggage animal."

"We have a pony," Olette said.

"She's _my_ riding pony," Naminé retorted, "and she won't be used for carrying a dwarf's beer."

"Whatever," Pence said. "So that's equipment. How about skills and feats?"

"I get skills," Sora said, "but what are feats?"

"It's a feature that gives your character a new ability or an edge over others," Pence told them. "For instance Sora, since Stor's a fighter he gets fighter bonus feats which give him more combat options. Since we're also including all these other feats besides the ones in the handbook, I'm going to give each of you an additional feat at the start. Normally a character gets one upon creation at level one, and another one if you're human because of their versatility to learning new things. However, because of all the new feats, I'm letting you all each get one extra feat to select at start. Sora, you're the only one who can't take regional feats."

"You've got something against me, I just know it," Sora grumbled.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to play a fighter and I still gave you that sword. Stop bitching."

"No Bast, _off_ the table."

"Hey, can you pass me a slice of meat lover's?"

"We're out."

"Fine then I'll take cheese."

"Hey there's one last wing, anyone want it? No? Dibs."

"I'll take Education and Eschew Materials as my two feats," Naminé declared. "Education makes all Knowledge skills class skills and Eschew Materials means I don't have to worry about material components for my spells unless they need a focus or a material component with a substantial value."

"Smooth Talk and Weapon Focus (Greatsword)," said Riku. "Smooth Talk gives me a +2 on Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks and the Weapon Focus gives me a +1 attack bonus with my greatsword."

"Smart choices," Pence said, nodding. He frowned. "Wait. Naminé, don't take Education."

"Why?"

"You're a Wizard. Wizards already have all knowledge skills as class skills. Do you really also just want a +1 bonus in any two knowledge skills?"

"Oops," Naminé said sheepishly. "If that's the case, then I'll take… Combat Casting for +4 to Concentration when casting on the defensive."

"Weapon Focus (Longsword), Power Attack, Toughness, and Improved Initiative," said Sora. "All of them combat feats to help out my fighter."

"Well for a fighter, yeah," Roxas said with a smirk. "Now, my barbarian. Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) and Skill Focus (Intimidate). That gives me +1 to attack and +3 to Intimidate, so I'll have a +1 Intimidate check because my Cha mod is -2, right?"

"Yep."

Kairi went next. "Weapon Focus (Longbow), Self-Sufficient, and Point-Blank Shot, giving me +1 with my bow, +1 bonus on attack and damage within thirty feet, and +2 on Survival and Heal, checks."

Olette appeared to be mulling over her choices, and then said, "Weapon finesse (rapier), and Stealthy, to give a +2 on Hide and Move Silently."

Yuffie went last of all with her halfling rogue. "I'll take Artist, and Deft Hands. They give +2 to Perform and to one Craft skill involving an art, and +2 to Sleight of Hand and Use Rope. So I'll take Craft (Carving)."

"She's going to steal all of our stuff," Roxas said to nobody in particular.

"She'd better not," Riku told her. "Or Johnny C. Norris will deal with her."

"Craft (Carving)?" asked Olette quizzically.

"Yeah," Yuffie answered. "It'd be anything involving wooden carvings probably."

Pence yawned and looked at the clock. It was getting late. "I think we should get the skills done and the stop. If you want we can go over back-story at lunch tomorrow at school and then get into adventuring tomorrow night."

"Sounds good," Sora said, looking at the time as well. He laughed. "Who knew making a character could take so long?"

"Way too many options," Yuffie remarked with a smile. "But at least it gave my halfling an interesting name: Furindy Penelibaris."

"Well, let's take a look," Pence began again. "I really don't think that I'll need to explain what any of the skills are, and by this point you can just look them up in the skills chapter if you have a question. Yuffie, as a rogue Furindy's class skills are appraise, balance, bluff, climb, craft, decipher script, diplomacy, disable device, disguise, escape artist, forgery, gather information, hide, intimidate, jump, knowledge (local), listen, move silently, open lock, perform, sleight of hand, profession, search, sense motive, spot, swim, tumble, use magic device, and use rope."

Roxas gave a low whistle. "That's a lot."

"Well I'm a rogue," Yuffie replied with a knowing shrug. "You have to know lots of things if you want to stay alive in the world of the city's underbelly."

"Right," Pence agreed listlessly, "now you can put up to four ranks into any of those skills by spending one skill point each, and up to two ranks in any other skills by spending one skill point for each half rank."

"How many skill points am I starting with again?" Yuffie asked.

"You're a rogue, so you start with eight plus your intelligence modifier of one, so nine, multiplied by four. And with each new level you'll gain nine more skill points to spend."

"Okay," Yuffie replied cheerily, beginning to mark down her skills.

It took some minutes for the others to mark down their own skill points, needing to double-check their starting number as well as their class skills and cross-class skills by flipping back and forth through Pence's two _Player's Handbook_s, but within twenty minutes, the seven players had arranged their skills to their satisfaction.

"So that's it?" Sora asked. "We're done?"

Pence reviewed all of their sheets. "Hm, I think so…wait. Naminé, you've yet to take a familiar."

"I have?" she asked.

"Yes," Pence told her. "Here they are, page fifty-two."

"Hm," Naminé said with pursed lips, "I think I'll take a cat as a familiar."

"Okay, and now we're done."

Agatha yawned from the chair she'd been sitting in at the coffee table. "Hm? What? You guys finally done?"

"Guess so," Kairi answered, stretching her limbs out. "So we actually get to play tomorrow?"

"Make it Wednesday," Riku said. "That way we'll actually have time to get those books and dice."

"Alright, Wednesday," Sora agreed.

Pence secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He had originally thought to send them on one escapade, but was only now realizing that it might be too much for them or too far out of their reach. Wednesday would give him time to come up with a smaller adventure for them, something within their ability. Plus, he still needed some sort of a situation in which all seven of their characters could come together.

The teen shook his head. He'd figure all that out soon enough. Right now, he needed to get home.

-A-D-

_DONE character creation. Now that all of that crap's out of the way, the real fun can begin._

_**May the Grace of the Valar Protect You**_

_Shire Folk_


	3. Into the Game

_Shire Folk: "Once again I see that you've returned to the realm of geekdom."_

_Kairi: "And we _finally_ get to start playing."_

_Shire: "Hey, character creation is an important part and it _is_ playing too."_

_Kairi: "In a pig's eye character creation is playing! It's _bo-ring_!"_

_Shire: (Rolling his eyes) "Whatever Kairi. Will you please do the disclaimer?"_

_Kairi: "Fine. Shire Folk does not own us, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, or Forgotten Realms. Now, let the adventures begin."_

-A-D-

**Table of the Keyblades**

Chapter III: Into the Game

Monday and Tuesday seemed to have gone by in a blur to Sora. Two days of school, hanging out, and training with Rei came and went, and Wednesday went by almost as quickly. Monday evening, he and Roxas went into Cantina and looked around. There were hundreds of comic books, mangas, anime spheres, plushies, t-shirts, posters, cards, and models, and entire bookshelves full of rulebooks and novels. The first half-hour inside the store was a little overwhelming, but they were able to calm down and come to terms with the fact that they were in the middle of a store filled to the brim with anything and everything that could constitute the word 'geek'. After their apprehensions were gone, more than a little bit of excitement filled them as they browsed.

Eventually the pair came full-circle towards the large bin containing dozens of the plastic containers like the one Pence had pulled out, each container holding a set of dice, with each dice set having a different look from one another. The helpful people working at the store told them, with knowing smiles on their faces, that you didn't just choose dice; the dice choose you.

After rolling a dozen d20s each, both of them had finally reached a decision on which dice liked them the most, and bought them as well as the _Player's Handbook_, along with a few other items, before leaving.

Now it was Wednesday, and Roxas knocked on the door of Naminé's studio with Sora just behind. "It's open," Kairi's voice called from inside.

Everyone else was already there and situated around the long table. Sora locked the door behind him and began paying attention to the conversation already in progress.

"…hilarious," said Yuffie.

Naminé nodded her head with a wide smile. "I know. I just love it every time she says that one line." The blonde sat up straighter and put her voice in a higher pitch. "Maybe I should teach you about the rules of this society."

"My Bride is a Mermaid?" Sora asked, surprised. "That show is beyond hilarious."

Yuffie fixed Sora a look of surprise before she started sniggering. "_You_ watch My Bride is a Mermaid?"

"I must repeat, it's beyond _hilarious_," Sora said again in justification. "It's just so over the top that you can't even begin to take it seriously."

"But it's a romantic high school comedy with mermaids," Naminé pointed out. She considered her words for a second before grinning slyly. "Oh…I see, of course, comedy with pretty anime mermaid girls, right?"

"Damn straight," Sora replied with a grin.

Olette glanced at the brunet's girlfriend. "Aren't you concerned or jealous Kairi?"

She shrugged and held a nonchalant smile. "Nah, it's cool. I know what his kinks are and it really just proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how heterosexual Sora is. I've got no concerns about him cheating on me with Riku behind my back."

"Besides, she'd turn into a whirling she-devil of death on me if I ever did cheat on her," Sora said brightly, finally sitting down at the table next to Kairi. Riku and Naminé shared quick, tiny glances at one another before looking away. The brunet quickly gave Kairi a kiss at seeing her again, even though they'd only been apart for less than an hour since school had ended.

"So is everyone ready for today?" Pence asked. "You all have your dice and books?"

Sora nodded his head, but noticed that Yuffie was grinning at her phone and suddenly started to laugh. She quickly got it under control, but she'd already attracted everyone's attention. "Oh Sora, you'd like this," she said.

"Like what?"

Yuffie's smile got a little more malicious. "Dear Boyfriend, I can make your girlfriend scream louder than you can. Sincerely, Spiders." She turned her grin right onto Sora, seeing his horrified expression. "Oh snap, I went there!" declared the ninja.

Kairi's equally mortified look suddenly crumpled as she giggled. "It's true."

"Kairi!" wailed Sora as the others suddenly laughed at the red head's proclamation.

"I'm sorry Sora but it's true, and they can make you scream louder than I can anyway so…"

"It's all Riku's fault!" Sora finished, pointing his finger accusingly at the silveret.

Riku chuckled. "Just let it go guys; let it go."

Pence raised his voice slightly over the chuckles, signifying that it was time to begin. "Alright, so you've all got your dice and books and you all have your character sheets all filled out. I've come up with back stories for each of your characters if you'd like to hear them."

Riku shook his head knowingly. "Sure, go ahead," he said. "If you could come up with a suitable back story for the one and only Johnny C. Norris, that is."

Pence answered with a shake of his head. "In this universe, all that is is a name, not a man who knows a word that rhymes with orange."

"Are you sure?" Riku asked.

"No matter what I say you're going to turn it into a Chuck Norris fact, so it doesn't matter," Pence replied. "But on the subject of your character's back story, where's your character sheet?"

"Here."

"Okay, so you say that he's seventeen, five feet and eight inches tall, one hundred and seventy pounds, with golden eyes and silver hair…yep, those work for physical traits that would show some of your celestial heritage."

"Silver hair huh?" Naminé asked.

"Guess the apple doesn't far fall from the tree does it?" Olette added lightly.

"Wait, five-foot-eight!" Sora exclaimed. "That means you're finally normal-sized!"

"Still taller than you in real life Shorty," Riku reminded him.

"Alright, so," Pence began again as Sora grumbled, "Johnny C. Norris is a level one paladin of Lathander, the Morninglord, from Silverymoon. You're part of a holy order of Lathander called the Order of the Aster, who, along with devoted fighters of Lathander, protect the shrines and temples of the god, serve as leaders for large military groups, and are levied as needed by the church. Generally though, they wander around doing good deeds and promoting the worship of Lathander. The Order is based out of Waterdeep, so it's close enough to Silverymoon that there's a pretty good group of them in Silverymoon too. You're aasimar, but you don't know it, all you know is that you've always been different from the other human kids around you as you grew up in Silverymoon."

"The silver hair isn't enough of a difference?" Riku asked smugly.

"The girls liked your silver hair," Kairi said. "Your character's a bishie like yourself." Roxas sighed and rolled his eyes while Riku shrugged.

"That's pretty much the basic story for Johnny C. Norris," Pence said. "You were accepted into the Order for your strong sense of justice and devotion to good, and they trained you enough at the temple to Lathander in Silverymoon to be able to hold your own. You're based at the temple in Silverymoon, but ready to go out and seek wrongs to right and evil creatures that threaten the land to slay." Riku nodded his head in understanding.

"So I'm a warrior of justice going around smiting things in the name of my god and doing good deeds because it's the right thing to do, all in the name of Lathander?"

"In a nutshell," Pence said whilst nodding. Riku nodded again.

Roxas smirked. "Riku, the paragon of justice," he said mockingly.

"Shut up dwarf, you're smaller than me," the silver-haired bishie retorted.

"Hey," Sora interrupted. He looked at his girlfriend and her twin. "Did you two remember to tell Helia and Honoka to cook for us all tonight, or are we fending for ourselves with another pizza run?"

"Don't worry your stomach Sora," Naminé assured him. "We told them that we'd be having guests over."

"What are they cooking?" Roxas asked quickly.

"We'll find out when Kensworth comes and gets us for supper," Kairi said.

"Fair enough," said Yuffie. "Now what's Furindy's back story?"

"You're a halfling," Pence answered, looking at her sheet to get a physical description. "You're twenty-two, two-foot-nine, weighing thirty pounds with dark brown eyes and black hai—" Pence stopped and looked at Yuffie, specifically at her hazel eyes and black hair before shrugging. Those weren't uncommon traits of halflings anyway. "You're a halfling rogue, who has ranks in dance and knows how to play the mandolin, which is why you have one. You're also good with your hands, make carvings, and you've got a pretty decent life going for you in Silverymoon. You came to Silverymoon from outside of Waterdeep when you came of age, and have been doing pretty well for yourself. However, you still have that bit of wanderlust and adventurous side with you, especially when it comes to removing people of possessions. The world owes halflings a living after all, and everyone around you has more than they need. But you never do so much as to become unwelcome and you price your carvings fairly."

Yuffie laughed and Roxas muttered, not for the first or last time, "She's gonna rob us blind when we're not looking."

"Now then, you, Balin Stoneaxe," Pence began, looking at Roxas while Sora got up and started to play a Led Zeppelin sphere. "You're a barbarian and you're also young for a dwarf, only fifty-two years old…"

"Why are you playing _Achilles' Last Stand_? Play _Stairway to Heaven_!"

"…four-foot-two, two hundred pounds, green eyes, and dark red hair, probably with a thick beard. However, despite being a barbarian, you can read and write because you learned these things before you left Citadel Adbar. You journeyed first to Sundabar, and are now in Silverymoon to try plying your trade as an armoursmith. There are always adventurers coming into the Silver Marches and Silverymoon from other lands or even rising up from their homes, and the smart ones get armour."

"So I'm in Silverymoon trying to work as an armoursmith and merchant?" Roxas asked, frowning. "Well that sounds a little boring."

Pence just looked at him. "That's what I came up with for how you got to Silverymoon. What you do now that you're there is up to you. You could decide _not_ to follow the quest hook that I'll give you guys as soon as we start, but then you'll be left sitting there and watching the others play." Pence turned to the other four. "Who wants their story next?"

"I do," Naminé spoke up, a bit of excitement coming into her voice. "So, what's the story behind Innohnine Moonfall, the twenty-one year old, five-foot-three, hundred-twelve pound moon half-elf wizard with silver eyes and black hair?"

Pence smiled at her eagerness. "For a start, you're not attending the Lady's College."

Naminé blinked. "I'm not?"

"That school costs you a thousand gold pieces in tuition a year," Pence remarked, "and besides, if you _did_ attend the school, there's no way that you would leave it to go adventuring with the others because of the amount of time you need to spend attending to your studies. You're lawful neutral, so nothing could really compel you to leaving the school until you decided it was time to leave."

"I guess so," Naminé said.

Pence leaned forward, seeing the disappointed look on the blonde's face. "But that doesn't mean you can't _aspire_ to getting into the school," he told her.

At this Naminé brightened. "That's true. So I just have to save up. I've got a goal now. Okay, so how is my character where she is now?"

"You were apprenticed to a wizard," Pence explained. Everyone's ears perked up at that, and Pence gave them a wicked smile. "You did a lot of the wizard's chores and boring work, picking things up as you went along. You cooked, you cleaned, you did laundry, and you fixed his cloak whenever he frayed it, sometimes on purpose just so that he could get you to fix it. He was a rather indifferent master, and you spent eighteen months doing humiliating and base drudge work for him, only being able to pick up the simple cantrips and the four level one spells that you know. One of those spells you learned by necessity, since he also had you perform sexual favours for him and you certainly didn't want to bear _his_ child."

"Great…" Naminé muttered through clenched teeth. "I don't like the guy already."

"Your character _hates_ him," Pence replied with a smile. "And when eighteen months came he decided that he didn't need an apprentice anymore and figured that you knew enough not to blow yourself up without him around to watch, and he sent you off back to your home with the pony you came with, the familiar you bonded with, and the spells you learned."

"Well that really sucks," Naminé said with a frown. "How come I get the crap back story?"

"Wizards guard their secrets jealously," answered Pence, "and your master was pretty secretive even about his work which he had you help with. Most wizards don't want to teach others since it takes away their own precious time. Every wizard also knows how much every other wizard seeks secrets of arcane lore, so they're always worried that their apprentice will put a knife in their back or find another way to steal their secrets."

Olette gave Naminé a look. "So the wizarding world is kind of like a seedy underbelly of a prosperous city, except it's the whole world and it all deals with magical secrets?"

Pence shook his head. "Not exactly. Most wizards don't care much for good or evil; seeking knowledge, and especially knowledge of the arcane and the ways of the Weave, is usually a prime focus as they go about their work whatever it is, but they don't like trusting other wizards with their secrets. Magical schools are pretty much the exception, where the wizards gather together to learn and teach one another. That's why your character is putting faith in the Lady's College in her home town. It can't be worse than her old master."

"And that's where adventuring would come in," Naminé realised, "because I'd need to find a way to get the money to pay for tuition to enter the university."

"Precisely," said Pence. "And you do know some magic, so it's not like you're completely useless to a party."

"What about me?" Sora asked. "What did you come up with for the fighter Stor Stormwind?"

"What are your characteristics?" Pence asked. "Let me see your sheet."

"What, are you coming up with our back stories based on what they look like?" Olette asked.

"No, I just want to know what he looks like for description," Pence answered. "Okay, nineteen, six feet, hundred and eighty-six pounds, blue eyes and light brown ha—" He stopped himself and looked flatly at Sora. "Please tell me that your hair isn't spiked halfway from here to Neverland."

Sora looked at Pence in confusion for a second. What was the teen talking about? "Uh, no, it's just lying around my ears in a rough cut. Not really long, but not totally short either."

Pence breathed a sigh. "Okay good, because for a second there I thought that a few of you were trying to just plant yourselves inside of Faerûn."

"Well his hair _could_ be spiky," Sora put in, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Oh no you don't," Yuffie warned him. "My halfling is not going to be going around with a big spiky-haired fighter or else she will be stealing all of your stuff."

"Fine, _normal_ hair for Stor," Sora relented.

Pence nodded his head approvingly. "Good. Your story is that you're a carpenter's son from a small village outside of Silverymoon amidst the farmland, and you're trying to join the Knights in Silver, the military force of Silverymoon. You've got your great-grandfather's sword and were able to trade for your own armour. The Knights are somewhat interested in you, but you don't have anyone to vouch for you and you don't have any combat experience, so they've turned you away until you've got some fighting experience."

Sora sighed dejectedly. "Well that sucks. Who are these Knights in Silver you mentioned?"

"They're the standing army of Silverymoon," Pence told them. "They guard Silverymoon, patrol the streets, make rounds of the surrounding countryside, go to war when the city or Lady Alustriel calls for it, and patrol the highway between Silverymoon and Sundabar nestled in the foothills between the north and south sides of the Nether Mountains. Most people are happy to see a Knight in Silver on the job, and the Knights work in conjunction in some cases with the Spellguard, Silverymoon's organization of battle mages who defend the city and palace."

"I like that name," Sora said suddenly, "Knights in Silver. It's much better than New Chasers anyway."

The only sound in the room for several seconds was Led Zeppelin's _Battle of Evermore_.

"Sora," Kairi started slowly, "are you considering changing our name? With all of the history behind the Chaser Knights, are you considering changing our name?"

Sora's reply was instant. "Yes," he answered.

There was silence for a few seconds again before Riku spoke up. "I can see what he's getting at," said Riku. "In a sense, the Chaser Knights are gone. Mickey and Asterix are the only two of them left. We're the new generation; _we're_ the new group and future of Keyblade Wielders across the Realm of Light. There are worlds that remember the Chasers and remember the war that brought them down; they remember that the war was between those who had Keyblades and that they'd been Chasers."

"So, create a new name and a new image for us," Naminé reasoned, seeing Riku's logic. "Distance us from the old Chaser Knights and create a new order for us. It doesn't really change us, but at the same time it does." She turned to Sora. "Good idea Sora."

"I thought so," Sora replied, a little smug. He'd had thought _nothing_ of any of that; he'd just thought that 'Knights in Silver' sounded a lot cooler than 'New Chaser Knights' or 'New Chaser Order'. "So, I'm calling it. We are now the Knights in Silver."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" shouted Kairi, Roxas, and Yuffie all at once. "You can't just decide that!"

Sora summoned the Kingdom Key to his hand. "Cosmos says I can," he answered.

"No, Sora," Kairi began diplomatically. "We should discuss this, come up with names, and you know, _vote_ on it. King Mickey's acknowledged the six of us to lead the new Wielders, as they appear, as a ruling council."

"And I don't want to be called a Knight in Silver," Roxas said.

"Your armour _is_ silver chocobo-head."

"That's beside the point."

"What about the Order of the Keyblade?" Olette asked.

"Too uncool," Sora replied, "and you can't vote anyway. You're not a Wielder of Power like the six of us so you're not on the Council of Six."

"Ouch," Olette said, flinching back.

"Sora!" Kairi scolded. He sighed.

"Sorry Olette; that was uncalled for," he apologized. Olette waved it off.

"Could you guys discuss this, not now?" Pence asked, just a little bit of his annoyance working its way into his voice.

Yuffie nodded. "Right, sorry Pence. So, who's next?"

"I think either me or Kairi," Olette said, glancing around the table. "Yeah, just us rangers left."

"Alright, so the human Eletra Greenwood and elf Talindra Amalith," Pence said, taking the offered character sheets. "Kairi you came up with Eletra's description last time, and Talindra is one hundred and five, four feet and seven inches tall, only a hundred pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair—"

"It's tied back into a topknot," Olette pointed out.

"I'm over a foot taller than you," Kairi said, surprised.

"Everyone's taller than her but the dwarf and halfling," Sora noticed.

Pence nodded, frowning slightly at Olette's sheet. "You're actually kinda short for an elf, since their general shortest height is four and a half feet tall."

Olette bristled slightly in annoyance. "So my wood elf is short, so what?"

"Nothing," Pence said quickly to assuage his female friend. "Okay, so both of you trained under the same wood elf ranger in the northern regions of the High Forest, close to the river Rauvin as well as Moon Pass between the east and west reaches of the Nether Mountains, where orcs commonly maraud. Your mentor released you both after she'd taught you all that you needed to know to survive on your own, saying that she couldn't teach you everything and that there were lessons that needed to be learned on your own as you forged your own path in life. She left you on the highway running from Everlund to Waterdeep, and you both decided to embark for Silverymoon to see what good you could do for the Gem of the North after your training."

"Sounds reasonable," Kairi said. Olette nodded in agreement.

Pence returned their sheets and injected his voice with the same sort of mysticism he would use when describing the 'Seven Wonders of Twilight Town'. "And now, our story begins. All of you, for one reason or another, find yourself in _The_ _Bright Blade Brandished_, an alehouse in the Northbank of Silverymoon. Silverymoon, the Gem of the North, is a city the likes of which is rarely seen, for it's a human city that is dominated by nature and beautiful stonework. Old oaks, shadowtops, and duskwood compete with tall, thin spires to touch the sky, and blueleaf trees shade flagstone sidewalks along most of the cobbled streets. Flowing curves that make buildings look like they grew rather than were built block by block is the style of stonework, with many older buildings clad in a thin layer of fused royal blue or emerald green glass. Balconies and curved stairs are everywhere, and herbs and flowers growing in sculpted pots adorn every windowsill or railing."

"We need to make Radiant Garden look like that," Naminé said.

Sora smiled and shook his head before exchanging a look with Kairi. "No matter what," he said, "you will never beat Rivendell or Caras Galodhon in Lothlórien."

Pence looked like he was about to ask them about the two cities, but decided against it. He'd get off-topic. "Anyway, you've all come to _The Bright Blade Brandished_ in Silverymoon. It's got two floors of rustic charm and booths have curtains around them which can be drawn for privacy. The conversation in the alehouse is friendly, as is the staff, and wizards down on their luck can earn a silver piece from the barkeep for each use of the _mage hand_ spell to send tankards flying across the room to the hands of waiting customers. What are you doing?"

Pence looked up at the group and saw them looking around at one another. "What do you mean?" Sora asked with a shrug. "We're in the pub."

"Yes, but what are you doing?" Pence asked. "Where are you sitting? Are you drinking ale or water? Are you chatting with locals or keeping to yourself or listening to conversation? What are you doing?"

"Oh," Olette remarked, looking down at her character sheet. "I guess that I'm sitting at the bar and drinking a glass of water."

"I've struck up a deal with the bartender," Naminé said. "I've got _mage hand_ memorized, so I'll be able to cast that for a few extra silver coins."

"Do you have _mage hand_ memorized?" Pence asked.

"Well, I know _mage hand_."

"Yes, but did you select it as one of the four cantrips you memorized today?"

"Can we just say that I did?" Naminé said. Pence shrugged.

"Okay, roll a diplomacy check," he told her.

Naminé blinked. "What?"

Pence explained. "Innohnine needs to persuade the bartender that she can do this and it's worth paying her. _Mage hand_ is a simple enough trick and it never really gets old for a customer to see their beer flying across the room towards their waiting hand, but you still need to convince him."

"Okay," Naminé said. "How do I do that?"

"Well, we can either role play or you can simply roll a d20 and add whatever your diplomacy score is and hope it beats the difficulty check, or DC, of the action."

"I think I'll just roll the twenty-sided die," Naminé said, opening up her case of dice and selecting the one with sides numbered from 1-20.

_Clack-clack-clack-clack!_

"20, plus 2 from charisma and 2 from my racial, so that's—"

"Wait a sec!" Pence exclaimed. "You rolled a natural twenty on your _first roll_?"

Naminé cringed. "Yes. Is something wrong?"

"Let me see those dice," Pence ordered, holding out his hand. Naminé handed him the Chessex set. Pence stared at the dice in his hand. They were an iridescent mixing of blood scarlet and purple, with golden numbers on them. They looked quite good, but he'd never rolled any dice of this colour before, and he wasn't about to roll Naminé's dice. He handed them back to her. "No, nothing's wrong, it just surprised me that your first roll was a natural twenty."

Sora glanced at Roxas and smiled. "The dice chose her," he said. His brother chuckled and nodded in agreement.

"And that's good?" Naminé asked slowly. She wanted to be sure.

"In most cases the higher you roll whenever you roll a d20, the better," Pence answered her. "And rolling a natural twenty on an attack guarantees a hit and threatens a critical. With a skill check though, rolling a twenty is just adding twenty to your skill modifier."

"Okay… so I rolled 24," Naminé said, noticing how the others had listened to Pence's explanation with nodding heads. "Do I succeed?"

"Yes you do," Pence answered with a smile. "You would have succeeded so long as you rolled a one or higher. The DC on that was five."

"So no matter what I rolled I would have succeeded?" Naminé asked, incredulous. Pence nodded. "So why did I roll?"

"To teach you how to roll for skill checks," Pence said simply. He looked away from the blonde. "So, what are the rest of you doing?"

"Stor strides up to the bar and I say, "I'll have a tall mug of ale please," and plop down, how much does that say an ale is? Stor plops five copper down on the counter. Four for the ale, and one as a tip," Sora told them. Pence picked up two of his emerald dice with white numbers and rolled them from behind a screen.

He made no indication of the roll and said. "The bartender comes over and picks up your coins. "Sure thing," he says brightly. "Hey Nera! One for this lad here!" A barmaid grabs a mug and goes to one of the taps and fills it up. She passes it to a robed man at the bar in front of her and passes him a silver coin. He flicks his finger at the mug and sends it flying over heads towards you."

"I grab it and take a draught," Sora said. "And I thank him for sending it my way."

"The wizard doesn't really care," Pence told him, "and just goes back to drinking his own ale at the bar."

"I'm already at the bar," Roxas said, "and into my second mug." Pence nodded.

"Make sure that you guys keep track of your money," he reminded them.

Yuffie spoke up. "I try playing my mandolin to liven things up a bit," she said, "and to maybe make a few coins here or there from it."

"Normal performance, good performance, great performance, or better?" Pence asked.

Yuffie looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "I want to play well," she told him.

"Roll Perform (Stringed Instruments) check," he told her. Yuffie grabbed her own dice, these a shadow black with gold numbers on them, and rolled her twenty-sided die.

_Clack-clack-clack-clack!_

"9, plus 4, 13," she said.

"You play well for the first few songs, but then you start screwing up on the chords and get frustrated as your fingers keep slipping up and you give up, leaving both you and the audience a little unsatisfied. You make (he rolled), one silver piece and one copper piece from your performance." Yuffie grumbled and Pence rolled dice again. He shrugged.

"I'm sitting at the bar with Olette," Kairi said, "and—"

"With who?" Roxas asked.

"Oh, sorry, with Talindra, and I order an ale."

"I slide up next to her and order one too," Yuffie said. Pence rolled a couple more times, smiled wickedly, and wrote something down on a piece of paper.

"Okay," he said as he folded the paper, "Innohnine gets passed a silver coin and is told to send one of the ales to the halfling while one of the other four wizards at the bar gets to send one off to Eletra."

Yuffie's eyes lit up as she read the contents of the paper, but she folded it back over and placed it safely within one of her belt pouches.

"What did that paper say?" Sora asked, looking sharply at Yuffie and Pence.

"You don't know what it says and it doesn't matter to you," Pence replied. "Riku, what's Johnny C. Norris doing?"

"I walk in," he declared. "Do heads turn?"

"Roll diplomacy check using your appearance modifier to see if just walking in warms people up to you."

Riku rolled his blue-steel with white numbering d20. His expression soured. "I rolled a 3, plus 6 so 9."

"Nobody notices," Pence returns.

"Dang it," Riku mutters, even while the others laughed. "I take a seat at an empty table near the bar and wait for a serving wench to come and take my order for food and drink."

"Okay," Pence said. "So you're all in the tavern and you're all eating and drinking. Are you talking to each other, or listening?"

"I'm talking to the dwarf," Sora said.

"You can role play if you want," Pence told them. Sora looked at Roxas.

"Hi master dwarf."

"Hullo laddie," Roxas said. "So, what brings you here?"

"I uh, I tried to join the Knights in Silver, but they turned me down." 'Stor' told the 'dwarf', who grunted in reply. "They said that I wasn't experienced enough."

"Sounds like you need to go and cut down a few orcs," Roxas returned. "And now you're drowning your sorrows in ale. A good way."

Pence turned to look at Kairi and Olette. Kairi shrugged. "I'm just listening."

"Me too," Olette added.

"I'm eating," Riku said.

"I'm drinking," Yuffie told them.

"Okay," Pence said. "So while you guys are doing this, a dwarf comes into _The Bright Blade Brandished_. He looks a little haggard and tired." Pence rolled behind his screen. "He sees the rising sun emblem on Johnny's armour and recognizes it as the symbol of Lathander. Instantly his face brightens and he comes over to your table."

"Great," Riku muttered.

"He scrutinizes you for a few seconds, probably because of you young you are, but then he seems to come to a decision and he starts to speak. "Paladin," he says, "I need your help.""

"I stop eating my meal for a moment and look at him. "Of course," I say. "What can Johnny C. Norris do for you?" and I pass him my cup," Riku told them.

"Oh for Light's sakes!" Naminé suddenly exclaimed. Everyone jolted and looked at her in surprise. Light flashed in her hand and suddenly she was holding onto her silver and pink Keyblade with its circular ribbed hilt in navy blue, Nobody's Pride. "Make your dreams reality, Sehanine." Nobody's Pride flared with bright white light, and the others had to look away. When the light faded, Naminé was holding onto a long navy blue staff topped with a hollow silver circle. Several crescent-shaped spokes emerged from the ring.

"That's your—!" Riku started, but before he could finish Naminé rapped the staff's butt end against the floor.

_Doom_

The room swirled around them, the lighting changing and the entire environment shifting. All was a blur of colours and shapes, and Sora forced closed his eyes to keep himself from being sick as he felt his orientation changing. When he opened them, he found to his surprise that the room looked exactly the same.

"Naminé what did you do?" he asked, staring at her and the released form of her Keyblade.

"Look at the table," she instructed. Sora gasped as he did. On the table, clear as day and appearing to be sunken into the wood, was a perfect miniature representation of the tavern as Pence had described it, complete with people at the bar, at tables, walking around serving patrons, and mugs of ale whizzing through the air to waiting hands. Even the sounds of the tavern and the firelight that kept it lit flitted out towards them.

"Whoa," Olette remarked, staring at the intricate detail. "Nice work Miss Illusionist."

"Thank you," Naminé said proudly.

"So what was with the light show?" Riku asked. Naminé smirked.

"Close your eyes and you'll see," she said.

Glancing at one another, they did.

Blackness of non-sight did not greet Sora, instead the red firelight reflecting off rich wooden beams of a building's walls. He suddenly felt something gripped in his hand, and when he looked at it he saw a tin mug of ale in his hand, and felt warm blood in his left arm. Glancing around wildly, he caught sight of a dwarf sitting next to him, staring at him with wide green eyes and thick dark red hair. A thick beard only about a half-foot long grew down from his chin. Instantly he recognized him as Roxas' character, just as he'd apparently jumped into the body of Stor Stormwind.

_I feel like I'm in Middle-earth again_, he thought before jamming his eyes shut.

When he opened them again, he was sitting at the table again and looking down at the inside of the tavern. "Incredible," he whispered, glancing at Naminé. She apparently wasn't paying attention, and had her eyes closed. Sora glanced down and caught sight of a black-haired girl at the edge of the bar wearing a set of grey robes and a red girdle. Her skin was pale and her ears were slightly pointed, showing her elvish heritage. Sora watched as she raised a hand and sent a mug of ale across the tavern to a booth.

"Naminé," Sora called. The blonde opened her eyes and looked at him. She smiled after dropping her startled expression at hearing his call.

"Sorry about that," she said as the others opened their own eyes, looks of wonder on their faces. "Yes, it is incredible. The perfect role-playing tool, right?"

"Yeah," Pence said. "Close your eyes and think, and you become your character and see all he or she sees and feel all he or she feels. I was prepared to have you guys just use your imagination to figure out what everything looked like or where things were, but this is amazing Naminé. We should work on this thing to make it, like, completely perfect."

"I'll work on it," Naminé assured him.

"Anyway," Pence said, putting them back on track. "The dwarf," he pointed at the tavern set in the table, specifically at a table where the haggard dwarf appeared to be in conversation with the silver-haired young paladin sitting there. "He says—"

"I'm Georn Ironhammer, a merchant, and me cart was attacked," a rough voice suddenly said. The group looked around for the source before realizing that it was coming from the dwarf that Pence had pointed out in the illusion.

"That _is_ incredible," Yuffie said.

"Thank you," Naminé said again, this time amazed herself.

"Attacked?" Riku asked, but it wasn't his voice that said the words. Riku's eyes were closed, and the voice had come out of Johnny C. Norris' mouth down in the illusion.

"Yes," Georn replied, nodding his head. "Orcs from their stinking caves ambushed me cart a few hours out from the gates, on the highway to Sundabar. They nearly killed one of the guards I'd hired and wounded two others before me and me guards were able to drive them off, but not before they'd stolen from me."

"And you want me to get this stock of yours back?" Johnny C. Norris asked politely.

Georn gave his head a fierce shake. "Nah. It's just a few pelts; I can deal with their loss. They took a chest from me cart, a chest that had an important family heirloom in it. Normally I'd go after the dratted orcs meself and crush their skulls in, but the guards I'd hired just took their pay and went. They didn't give a whit about the chest, and I can't just leave, not with the traders from Waterdeep coming in on the morrow; I'll lose business."

"So you want me to get this chest?" Johnny C. Norris asked. "Consider it done."

Sora looked throughout the tavern from his overhead position. He looked at Pence. "Do I hear them talking about this?"

"Make a listen check."

Sora rolled. "12."

"You overhear their conversation."

"Okay," Sora said, looking around. He could see that several of his friends had their eyes closed, and that their characters down in the tavern were looking at the merchant and paladin from their seats. He shrugged. "I leave my seat and come over to the table where the two are talking." He watched as the figure that was Stor got up and walked over to the table. The dwarf and paladin stopped talking and looked at Stor. "I say—"

"I couldn't help but overhear you," Stor's young, but deeper voice than Sora's own, pilfered through the room, "and I want in."

"Count us in as well." Sora saw that the two rangers had joined the group at the table, and that it was the human female who had spoken. "You might need help finding the way to their lair."

"Hm," Georn grunted, seeing the wood elf. "Elf."

"Would an added dwarf suit you?" The dwarf that Stor had been talking to hopped off of his seat at the bar and came to the table.

"This might be fun," a halfling added as she came from the bar, "I think I'll come too."

"You might want a wizard," said the half-elf who had been using her magic to make mugs fly across the room, coming towards the group as well. "There might be more orcs than just the ones that attacked you."

The dwarf looked around at the group of six who had gathered around him and the paladin. "Thank you," his voice carried throughout the room observing the tavern, though in the alehouse it was low enough only for those around the table to hear. "I'll pay all of you for your help, ten moons each, and you can keep whatever you take from the orcs of course."

Naminé's eyes opened suddenly and she looked at Pence. "What does he mean by moons?"

Yuffie looked at their dungeon master. "Yeah I was wondering that too," she said.

"Moons are a gold coin with a shining gold crescent," Pence said. "Silverymoon mints them and they have a value of two standard gold pieces within the Silver Marches, but are worth the same as one gold piece in other lands." He looked at them all. "So you're all out of the role-playing tub now?"

"Yeah, we're all out of it," Olette said.

"Okay," Pence said. "Naminé, it's great, but from now on please declare that you are going into the role-playing tub before going into the role-playing tub. Otherwise, you're giving your character actions from up here like every other D&D group. It makes it easier to know who still has their minds up here with me." They all agreed.

"So Georn agrees and leaves you to make the arrangements. What time are you guys leaving tomorrow?"

"Sunrise," Riku said.

"I need to buy food," Sora said quickly. "I don't have any trail rations."

"Neither do I," Roxas added.

"How about noon?" Kairi asked the group. "That would give us time to get supplies."

"Noon?" Pence asked. Heads nodded around the group. "So you agree to meet at noon at the Sundabar gate. Now do you guys already have rooms or places to stay in?"

"What's the weather like outside?" Kairi asked.

"Clear and nice. The moon is shining brightly and a gentle wind is blowing. If you want, you can make a survival check to try and forecast the weather."

"Nah," Kairi replied. "I'm just going to risk it and decide to sleep in one of the parks in the city that I can assume with relative confidence exist after you gave us that description of the city."

"The rest of you?" Pence asked.

"I want to see if there's a good inn," Sora said.

"You ask around and the bartender is able to recommend the _Wayward House_ and he gives you directions to it," the dungeon master told him. Sora nodded.

"Okay, so I go there," he said.

"I'll go there too," Naminé said, "after I've finished using _mage hand_ five times for five silver coins."

"I'll find a room there too," Roxas announced. Pence nodded his head.

"Talindra's going to sleep outside with Eletra," Olette declared.

Riku rubbed his chin for a second. "Can I assume to have a room at the temple of Lathander?"

"Yes," Pence said.

"So I go home."

"What about me?" Yuffie asked. "According to you, Furindy's been in Silverymoon for a while. So do I have a house?"

Pence thought about it for a few seconds. He should have seen that question coming. "Yes," he told her. "Furindy has a home in Southbank, on the south side of the Rauvin across the Moonbridge."

"Alright!" Yuffie crowed. "Beat that suckers, I've got a house!"

Pence smiled slightly at the retorts the others sent her way. "Okay, so you all start to leave. On your way out though, the bartender calls to you," he pointed at Kairi, "and reminds you that you still have to pay for your drink."

"How much did an ale cost?" Kairi asked, glancing at Sora's handbook, which was open to that table, "four copper? I have six so I pull out four and pay him."

Pence nods. "Okay, you give him your four copper before leaving. So you guys go and do this. It's now morning and you all slept well. It didn't rain and nobody preyed on Eletra or Talindra while they slept outside even though it's not uncommon; to sleep outside I mean, the preying on people in Silverymoon is pretty uncommon. Now, you've got a bit of time until you agreed to meet up, so I suggest you shop around for some food or other supplies you might need."

The group nodded and looked through their books, double-checking the prices and weight of the food. Pence busied himself with rolling behind his screen and double-checking things in his books. "Uh, Pence," Kairi said after a second. "It says here under clothing that we all start with either an artisan's, entertainer's explorer's, monk's, peasant's, scholar's, or traveller's outfit and that it doesn't count against how much we can carry and that it's free."

"What?" Pence gasped.

"Yeah," Riku agreed. "It says so right in the book."

"Oh," Pence mumbled sheepishly. "Then, I guess you guys get your money back from the outfits and you can take that weight off. Most of you are getting a gold piece back then, and five for Innohnine and three for Furindy." A couple of them snorted at him for overlooking something so trivial, dungeon master indeed, before continuing with shopping for their amenities.

"It says here that a day's worth of trail rations are a pound each," Naminé wondered, "but a loaf of bread, hunk of cheese, and meat are all half a pound. Does that mean that I'd need two loaves of bread for a full day?"

"Well if you'd rather eat bread all day," Kairi said with a grin. "Sometimes rations can taste quite good (she nudged her boyfriend), right Sora?"

He smiled, remembering the cakes they'd had. "Hey Pence, is my character able to bake _lembas _bread?"

"Do you have ranks in Craft (Cooking, Elvish) or Craft (Baking, Elvish)?"

"How did you know it was an elvish bread?"

"I guessed. Well, do you?"

"No."

"Then I doubt that you'd be able to bake _lembas_ bread."

"Wait!" Yuffie exclaimed. "Do we actually need ranks in _cooking_?"

Pence laughed. "No, I was just messing with Sora. Though, it could never hurt to have ranks in cooking. You never know what a good meal could do for you."

All of them could take the hint. "Who has a cooking pot?" Olette asked openly.

"Uh, I do," Riku said.

"So do I," Sora added.

"Okay," Kairi declared. "We can't lose these two; they have the pots for cooking stews in."

"Or we just make sure that we loot the pots from them if they die," Yuffie said.

"Yuffie," Pence sighed. "Your halfling's alignment is Good."

"Taking cooking pots from our dead friends isn't an act of evil," Yuffie argued. "Just as we would divide up the belongings from the enemies we kill, we would also need to divide up those things our friends owned that would not be missed. They can't take it with them if they're dead, and it would disgrace them to let their possessions go to waste or be taken from them by roaming goblins or bandits."

Pence nodded after a second. "Speaking from the heart, just the way a chaotic character should be." He turned to the group. "Have you all finished gathering supplies and, Naminé; has Innohnine memorized her spells for the day?"

"I think so," Sora said. "At least, I think I've got all that I need." The others all nodded in assent.

"I've memorized my spells too," Naminé said.

"Okay, what's your encumbrance?"

"Encumbrance?" Roxas asked. "The heck is that?"

"What's the weight of everything you're carrying, and is it a heavy, medium, or light load?" Pence asked. "The amount of weight you can carry is based on your strength score, and you can find that on the table on page 162. I recommend getting a tenday's worth of rations, which would be ten pounds and cost five gold pieces."

"What's a tenday?" Roxas asked while the others groaned a little and made trips to page 162 of the _Player's Handbook_ and began murmuring about just how much weight they were carrying and whether it would slow them down or not.

"It's the Faerûnian week," Pence explained. "Faerûn has twelve months of thirty days each, with the months being divided into three weeks of ten days each, called a tenday. There are also five—"

"I'm only carrying a light load!" Naminé cheered.

"—special days between the months that aren't technically part of the months or tendays."

The blue eyes of both Sora and Kairi widened and they looked at each other. "Oh my gods," Kairi whispered, shocked. "It's almost same as the Shire Calendar."

"You're right, it almost is," Sora agreed.

"What's the Shire Calendar?" Olette asked, a little intrigued.

The experienced campaigners both looked at her. Both of them started at once, and then stopped. Kairi motioned for Sora to continue. "The hobbits of the Shire also have twelve months of thirty days," he said. "They have their own hobbit names for the months, but they also call them September, April, June; the same names that we give them and the same is true for the days of the week. The five days that are separate from the calendar are around Midsummer and New Year's, being 1st Lithe, Overlithe, 2nd Lithe, 1st Yule, and 2nd Yule."

"Bit different in Faerûn," Pence said, "but, yeah. The weeks are called tendays, and I recommend getting that many days worth of rations. If you don't want that much, you can always hinge on the rangers or barbarian using survival to scrounge for you or sharing your food."

"I think we're good," Yuffie said. "So let's go out there and kill some stuff."

"Alright," Pence humoured her. "So it's noon, and you seven have all met up inside the gate at the highway to Sundabar. There's a small amount of merchant traffic on the road, but not much is coming or going." On the table, they could see that Naminé's illusion had changed from being the inside of the alehouse to being the gates of Silverymoon. All eight of them, if they looked, could see the seven companions gathered together, along with a pony and a small cat.

"What's the cat doing here?" Roxas asked, looking into the illusion.

"He is my familiar," Naminé replied. "His name is Bernicus. And this is my pony, Lightfoot."

"I'm going into the role-play tub," Kairi declared. She closed her eyes, and suddenly they could hear a female voice sifting out from the table. It sounded a little like Kairi's voice, but was just different enough that it could be confused for someone else's. "A pony huh? Well at least we'll be able to put some of our excess baggage on it."

Naminé shot a look at her illusion and announced, "In role-play tub!" Moments later they could hear another voice coming out of it. "You are _not_ loading extra baggage onto Lightfoot! He's a riding pony, not a pack pony."

Sora looked between the two sisters with their closed eyes, and then said, "Role-play tub."

-A-D-

"We're going Orc-hunting, not out on a day picnic," Stor told the stubborn girl, giving the half-elf in her grey robes and brown cloak an annoyed look, forcing himself to look down at her because of their height, "and the rest of us are walking, so you might want to remember that."

"We're not a half-elf's loyal guard," the dwarf, Balin, grumbled beneath his short dark red beard, "so you might want to get off your high-horse."

"I am not as used to walking long distances as you might be, dwarf," the half-elf replied, her silver eyes glaring at the shorter member of the party.

-A-D-

Riku glanced at Pence, hearing every word spoken inside. "I try to get them to stop fighting before it gets out of hand."

Pence nodded. "Roll a diplomacy check."

As Riku grabbed his die, Yuffie picked up her own shadow-black d20. "I check to see if I can steal something from the dwarf while he's busy arguing."

Pence and Olette groaned. "You're _good_ Yuffie," they reminded her.

"I'm also chaotic," Yuffie argued. "There's even an example in the book of a Robin Hood figure being a chaotic good person, stealing from people who have more than they need and giving it to those who need it. The way halflings view the world, most people have more than they need and the world owes halflings a living." When she got a stare from Pence and a remark about how her halfling is actually _making_ a living she asked, "Can I just steal things unconsciously? Like how you passed me that note saying I stole 4gp, 1sp, and 2cp from Eletra when I passed her at the bar?"

"I _knew_ it!" Roxas yelped. "I knew you stole something!"

"What, you mean like a Kender?" Olette asked. "Like Tasslehoff Burrfoot?"

Yuffie shrugged. "No idea who that is, but yeah!"

Pence's head wobbled on his shoulders for a few seconds as he mulled it over. "Yeah I guess... Except you don't do it consciously, so you don't roll. I'll roll, and you won't know what you've stolen or if you've stolen anything unless I decide to tell you."

"Okay," Yuffie said, setting down her die.

Riku had yet to roll, but stayed looking at Pence. "Do we know if she's stealing things, like what she stole from Kairi?"

"Whenever she fails there'll be a chance that whoever she tried to steal from will notice," Pence said while rolling behind the screen, "otherwise, no meta-gaming on knowing whether or not the halfling is stealing your stuff, I mean _you_ Roxas; now roll diplomacy."

-A-D-

The dwarf looked like he was about to retort, when a hand came to his shoulder. The paladin, with his strange golden eyes and silver hair, armoured in his bright chain shirt and steel cap with a surcoat bearing the dawn emblem of Lathander's followers over his armour, began to speak. "Just calm down everyone," he said in his still boyish voice. "Let's not start fighting all because of a pony. The longer we stand here arguing the farther away those orcs get. You can ride if you wish, wizard, and the rest of us will walk, but make sure you check your pony so those of us with heavier burdens can keep up."

Stor nodded his head grudgingly. He figured that he could take the younger paladin on, but he agreed. He didn't really want this party to be torn apart all because the wizard had a pony and wished to ride. If it were, he'd never get to those orcs and get some experience like the Knights had turned him away for having a lack of.

The silver-haired young man moved past the tall fighter, Stor already outfitted for battle in his scale mail; he wore no helm, but his shield was slung on his back next to his bow, quiver, and pack. The paladin helped the shorter half-elf up into Lightfoot's saddle courteously, to which she replied with a word of thanks and a smile.

The human ranger standing next to Stor sighed and shook her raven-clad head. "Let's get going," she said, "we've got orcs to hunt." Stor nodded and slung the sack containing some of his possessions over his shoulder.

-A-D-

_Changes in characters:_

_Party accepts quest: Retrieve heirloom (and kill some durned orcs while you're at it!)_

_Balin Stoneaxe buys two ales for 8cp_

_Stor Stormwind buys an ale for 4cp with 1cp tip_

_Eletra Greenwood buys an ale for 4cp_

_Furindy Penelibaris earns 1sp and 1cp from performing and spends 4cp on an ale_

_Johnny C. Norris spends 3sp on a common meal at _The Bright Blade Brandished

_Innohnine Moonfall earns 5sp using _mage hand_ to whisk mugs of ale overhead in _The Bright Blade Brandished

_Stor, Balin, and Innohnine all take rooms at the _Wayward House_ for 5sp each_

_Party buys 48.5lbs of trail rations (worth 28gp)_

_Party buys 2lbs of bread (worth 8cp)_

_Johnny C. Norris buys 2 lbs of meat (worth 24sp)_

_Johnny C. Norris buys 1lb of cheese (worth 2sp)_

_Furindy Penelibaris steals 4gp, 1sp, and 2cp from Eletra Greenwood_

_Furindy Penelibaris steals Balin Stoneaxe's money pouch (containing 14gp, 4sp, and 3cp)_

Would you prefer to have me list things like ^this^ at the end of each chapter to keep things organized if you care, or just go along with it?

_**May the Grace of the Valar Protect You**_

_Shire Folk_


	4. Rats

_Sora: "And now we're finally on the path to adventure, riches, and glory."_

_Kairi: "I know that we got adventure and glory on our own adventure, but we didn't get a lot of riches did we?"_

_Roxas:__ "__What __are __you __talking __about? __You __guys __each __got __your __own __horses __from __a __king, __mithril __armour __that __you __don__'__t __even __wear, __fancy __clothes, __and, __uh__… __well __you __had __to __have __gotten _some _munny __from __all __the __Heartless __you __killed __at __Helm__'__s __Deep __and __Minas __Tirith.__"_

_Sora: "There were so many there Roxas that we didn't really have time to loot the darkness for cash. And in case you didn't notice, the way Shire's been writing things, not a whole lot of the Heartless have even dropped munny."_

_Kairi: (grinning) "I think I got the most while I was at the Ford of Bruinen from the few Bolt Towers I fought. Shire cared enough to write them exploding into munny beads."_

_Shire: (rolling his eyes and groaning) "Well maybe I didn't think that it would matter much considering just how much munny Sora accumulated from the Heartless along the way in his second journey and that you and Naminé were royalty, Kairi."_

_Kairi: "Yeah, but everything was just kinda given to us. We barely ever had to actually buy anything. And it was a good thing too because, I kinda ran out of cash months before the war ended."_

_Sora: (looking at her quizzically) "What did you spend it all on?"_

_Kairi: "Potions and ethers. You didn't think I was going to go into that big battle in Radiant Garden unprepared now did you?"_

_Shire: "Whatever. Will one of you do the disclaimer please?"_

_Roxas: __(in __Balin __Stoneaxe __voice)__ "__I __will. __Shire __Folk, __the _Halfling_, __does __not __own __Kingdom __Hearts, __Disney, __or __Forgotten __Realms. __Now, __let__'__s __get __the __ball __rolling. __I __have __a __feeling __our __DM __has __a __few __encounters __prepared __for __us __this __chapter.__"_

-A-D-

**Table of the Keyblades**

Chapter IV: Rats

"So you guys head out along the road," Pence told Riku, Roxas, Olette, and Yuffie, seeing Sora, Kairi, and Naminé still with their eyes closed in the role-playing tub. "Innohnine is riding on her pony, Lightfoot—"

"Hey, aren't I a Lightfoot halfling?" Yuffie asked, glancing at her character sheet. "She stole the name of my race of halflings for her pony's name."

"And you stole money from Eletra's purse," Roxas commented dryly. "So what?"

Yuffie shrugged. "Just saying."

Pence continued. "Innohnine's on her pony, and the rest of you are walking. It takes you about two hours along the road to reach the site of the ambush of the dwarf's cart. There are still bloodstains on the road, red blood from the guards and some orcish black blood. You see the black blood leading into the fields in a northerly direction."

"Will I need to roll Survival to track them?" Olette asked, already picking up her dice: purple, with white numbers on them. Pence shook his head.

"The tracks are fresh and they made no effort to conceal them, plus there's a clear trail of blood for at least ten metres into the cleared farmland."

"I search the ground to see if there's anything they left behind," Yuffie said, picking up her shadow-black d20. She rolled. "Seven."

"You find a dead orc ten feet off the side of the road."

"I search the orc to see if he's got anything."

_Clack-clack-clack-clack_

"Twenty."

"He's got nothing on him but his torn clothes and armour. The guards already picked him clean."

"The trail's clear," they heard rising from the illusion on the table. It was Eletra. "We should get moving. The orcs are already a day ahead of us."

Riku nodded at the voice inside of the illusion, seeing his own character nod within the table, and they watched as the party began to head into farmland. "What's your marching order?" Pence asked.

"Eletra's in front," Olette noticed.

"I go behind her," Riku spoke up. "And, uh, then I think Stor, Innohnine, Balin, Furindy, and Talindra."

Pence nodded, watching as the marching order of the characters in the illusion became that. "I'll scout ahead," Eletra's voice drifted out of the illusion, and the ranger took off. That left the paladin and fighter at the front, leading the wizard on her pony, followed by the dwarf barbarian and halfling rogue, with the elf ranger acting as rear guard.

"So you guys follow the trail for about two hours," he said, rolling behind the screen. He checked something quickly before putting his head directly over the illusion. "Hey! Stor, Innohnine, and Eletra! Get your butts up here, I need to explain something."

Sora, Naminé, and Kairi all blinked and made tiny shakes of their heads. "Okay, we're out," Sora said. "What's up?"

"Kairi, roll a Spot and Listen check," Pence ordered.

Kairi picked up her d20, a jade die with gold numbers on it, and rolled it twice. "Okay, total of six for my Spot check, and ten for my Listen check," she said.

"You don't see anything from your forward position, but you start hearing squeaking and loud rustling in the field off to your left," Pence told her. "It gets louder and you can tell that the squeaking and rustling is coming towards you."

Kairi looked at Pence for a few seconds. "Squeaking and rustling?" she asked.

"_Lots_ of squeaking and rustling," Pence told her. Kairi rolled her eyes.

"Do I know what this squeaking and rustling belongs to?" she asked the DM.

"Make a Knowledge (Nature) check."

_Clack-clack-clack_

"Eighteen with mod."

"You are very certain, without having seen the creatures, that they are dire rats, and you discern that they are probably fifty feet away from the trail you're following," Pence told her. Riku, Sora, and Roxas all looked about to speak and Pence fixed them a look. "You guys don't know yet because Eletra's the point guard. She's about fifty feet ahead of you. This is a surprise round, so only Eletra and the dire rats can act."

"When do we roll for initiative?" Roxas asked.

"When the surprise round is over," Pence told them.

Yuffie raised her hand. "Sorry Pence, but that just went over my head. What round and initiative?"

Pence began to speak patiently as he explained. "We're starting combat," he told them. "In this instance, only Kairi's character is aware of the rats that are attacking, and the rats are aware of all of you. The rest of your characters are not aware of the rats yet." He pointed into the illusion, and they could see the marching line with Eletra some distance up from the group, turning to peer off to the left into the farmland they were passing through. Some distance away from her they could see a shadowy mass, squeaks coming up from the mass along with the rustling of the tall grasses.

"Since only some of the combatants are aware of each other, there's a surprise round in which only those combatants can act, since the rest don't know what's happening and are caught unawares. Initiative decides your order in combat. Kairi and the rats will each roll initiative, and the higher roll plus modifiers goes first. At the end of the surprise round, all characters who are now aware of the combat will roll initiative and the rats and Kairi will reroll to determine turn order for regular combat." He turned to Kairi. "You got that?"

She smiled at him. "I read the chapter on combat."

Pence beamed. "Good. Then you kinda know this already. Roll initiative."

She did, and Pence did likewise. "Thirteen plus four from my Dex mod gives me a seventeen for initiative."

"Rats rolled ten," Pence told her, "so you act first."

"First," Kairi began, "is there anything that my knowledge check let me know about dire rats? Is there anything I know that I need to be careful of?"

"You know everything about dire rats as there is in the _Monster__Manual_," Pence told her. He handed Kairi the book, and she looked it over.

The red-head looked up. "Can I tell the others this? (Pence nodded) Okay, I shout, 'Dire rats! Be careful, their bites can infect you with Filth Fever!' and draw my longbow," Kairi told them. "And… I can still take a move action as well even though drawing a weapon is a move action because my base attack bonus is plus one or higher, and I can only move at twenty feet per round because I have a medium load, but the rats move twice as fast as me, so I move twenty feet back towards the group and turn to look in the direction I heard them, and I fire from my bow at one of them." She picked up her d20 and rolled it. "Six, plus seven is thirteen."

"You can see them now that you're looking at them," Pence said, "and you can see that there are fifteen dire rats closing on you. Your arrow just misses the lead rat. The rats move forty feet, which puts them about fourteen feet diagonally away from you. And that ends the surprise round. Roll initiative! So to roll, you roll your d20, and then add your Dex modifier and any other modifiers such as having the Improved Initiative feat."

The group grabbed their dice, and each of them rolled. Sora's roll ended up the highest, followed by Kairi's, Olette's, Yuffie's, Roxas', Riku's, and Naminé's. Pence rolled for the rats, and they ended up with a roll of six, just one less than Naminé's roll. "Okay," said the DM, "so it's Stor's turn first, and then we go along until it's the rats' turn. All fifteen of them are acting at once."

"Okay," Sora said. "Since I can make a standard action, free actions, and a move action in my turn I drop my pack as a free action, and I move the thirty feet to where Eletra is," Sora added, "drawing my longsword and donning my shield as a free action because I have Quick Draw. And that will put me fourteen feet away from the rats at the end of my turn."

They could all see the action Stor took inside of the illusion, the big fighter dropping his pack on the trail and pulling out his heavy wooden shield and longsword as he hustled to the ranger's side. They could also hear him calling, "I'm coming ranger!"

"It's my turn now, right?" Kairi asked. "I've got my bow out, so I'm going to fire at the lead dire rat again."

"I can't believe we're fighting something as stupid as rats," Riku muttered, and they could hear the paladin in the illusion say the same thing.

Kairi looked at the silver-haired Keyblade Wielder. "They're dire rats; they're as big as Yuffie's halfling." At the same time they could hear Eletra shooting off at Johnny C. Norris, "They're really big rats, paladin! They'll bite your head off and chew your bones apart if you're not careful!"

Naminé gulped. "Those are _big_ rats. And there's fifteen of them?" Kairi shrugged and rolled her d20.

"Seven plus seven is fourteen," she said. "But it's within thirty feet, so because of my Point Blank Shot feat, I gain a plus one, so fifteen. And that's the same as the dire rat's armour class so I should hit."

"Your arrow digs into the dirt in the ground just in front of the rat you were aiming for," Pence told her.

"Crap!" she hissed. "How did I miss?"

"You forgot to subtract one from your attack roll because you're attacking a small target and you're a medium-sized character."

"But it _already_ gets a plus one to its armour class because it's small! So it gets a plus one and I take a minus one at the same time?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Crap. Okay guys, you need to roll sixteen or better before subtracting one to hit the stupid rats. I'm going to move twenty feet further back, away from the rats not towards the column, and end it there."

"Okay, Talindra's turn," Pence said.

"Why don't we just RP it?" Roxas asked.

"You can't RP combat!" Pence insisted, staring at Roxas incredulously.

Roxas shrugged. "Why not?" he asked. "We've got this wonderful thing here," he added, pointing to the table.

"If you guys were to RP combat there would be no challenge," Pence told him. "All of you personally are so skilled that if you took personal control of your characters the rats wouldn't stand a chance against you. No, combat needs to be rolled properly. Anyway, Talindra's turn."

"I raise my bow and fire at one of the rats on the edge," she said, picking up and rolling her die. "Twenty."

"Twenty total or natural twenty?" Pence asked quickly.

"Twenty total."

"You hit," Pence declared. "Roll damage."

Olette picked up her eight sided die, the damage die specified by her weapon, and rolled. "Two."

"Your arrow sinks into the rat's flank and it squeals in pain. You can still make a move action."

"I'll move fifteen feet further back," Olette declared.

"Alright, the halfling's next."

"I draw my shortbow and shoot for the same rat Talindra targeted. I roll…well I rolled a two so I assume I don't hit at all."

"You hurry your shot and your arrow misses wildly. You can still move, though," Pence reminded her. "Rogues have a base attack bonus of one at level one, so you can still take a move action."

"No, I'm good where I am," Yuffie replied. Pence turned to Roxas.

"Balin?"

Roxas smiled. "I give a shout for battle and run to stand with Stor, drawing my dwarven waraxe and shield. That'll let me move at thirty feet still because I'm a dwarf barbarian."

"That puts Johnny C. Norris next," Pence said with a sigh.

Riku positively glowed now that it was his turn. "I ditch my other gear and join Stor and Balin in the line they're making, drawing my greatsword and shouting, 'By the light of Lathander, I'll smite you evil rats!'"

Sora, Naminé, Olette, and Yuffie all laughed loudly at Riku's comment. "Dire rats are always neutral," Kairi told him with a smirk. "I think it's your turn Naminé."

The blonde nodded. "I check Lightfoot," said Naminé, "and dismount from him. That takes a move action, and I've got three spell points and magic weapon memorized, so I cast magic weapon on my light crossbow to give it a magical plus one bonus for one minute. How many rounds is that?"

"A round is six seconds," Pence told her, "so you have ten rounds with a plus one bonus on your crossbow." He smiled wickedly. "And now it's the rats' turn. All fifteen of them. Okay, ten of the rats see the fighter, barbarian, and paladin, and swarm around them, two of the other five keep on their original target of Eletra, and the other three turn towards Talindra, Innohnine, and Furindy. Four of them go after the big fighter." Pence started to roll his d20, and the group couldn't help but look at the illusion. The fifteen dire rats, each over two and a half feet tall, looked to be swarming the group of seven. Each clacking roll of the die felt dreadfully ominous, as well as the way Pence's eyes bulged a couple of times.

"Sora, what's Stor's AC?"

"Seventeen," he replied with a slight gulp.

"One of the four hits you for two damage. What are Balin and Johnny's ACs?"

"Balin's is the same as Stor's," Roxas said. He glanced at Riku's sheet. "And Johnny's is fifteen."

"Okay, so two hit Balin, dealing four damage total," Pence told Roxas, "and one hits Johnny for three. Of the pair that attacked Eletra, one hits for…one damage."

Kairi released the breath she almost didn't realize she'd been holding in. "Oh thank the gods," she said with a faint smile, "I've only got six hit points."

Pence looked at her in astonishment. "Oh right, you've got a crappy Con mod."

"How'd you know that one hit Eletra?" Olette asked.

"Two of the rats rolled a twenty," Pence said. "One on Eletra, and the other on Balin. The other one that attacked Eletra attacked worth eight, so there was no way it'd hit. Two of the other rats go for Talindra, but she's too far away, and one goes for Innohnine, but she's also just too far away."

Pence stopped and looked at the group. Sora, Roxas, Riku, and Kairi were looking at their sheets anxiously. "It's Stor's turn now," Pence reminded him. Sora removed his gloves, revealing the automail of his left hand.

"I attack the dire rat that bit me," he announced, gripping his d20 and rolling it around in his fleshy right hand. He cast his die. "Nineteen!" he crowed. "Even without modifying it I'm going to hit and that threatens a critical! And rolling for the critical…I roll ten, plus six, minus one, that gets me fifteen which is their AC, so I hit and I deal two times damage!"

"Nice rolling Sora!" Yuffie said, smiles returning to their faces as Sora rolled his d8.

"Six plus three is nine, times two is eighteen."

Pence smirked. "You shout in anger and swipe at the rat that bit you in the arm, and your sword passes through its skull and cuts its brain into two pieces. Part of the dire rat's brain matter goes flying along with pieces of bone and blood."

The party cheered and laughed.

"You pwned that dire rat Sora," Roxas said, raising his hand for a high-five.

Sora laughed and obliged Roxas. "Kairi, it's your turn," he said.

"I put away my bow and draw my scimitar," Kairi told Pence, "and I attack the rat that bit me with it. I roll eighteen, plus one is the total of the modifiers so my attack is nineteen, which hits, and since I'm using a scimitar my critical threat range is eighteen to twenty so I also threaten a critical… ha! Natural twenty to confirm the critical! So I'm gonna deal (she rolled her d6), five damage times two is ten."

"You slash the dire rat across the ribs and open a deep cut in the rat's flank and it falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding out."

"Ye-ah!" Yuffie cheered. "Good job you two!"

"It's only two of fifteen though," Naminé reminded them nervously.

Olette rolled her eyes. "Way to be a killjoy Naminé."

"I'm the one with the lowest AC here, I'm legitimately worried for Innohnine's survival. You know what I just realized? We don't have a healer with us."

"No shit?" Yuffie asked. "Then we're just gonna have to kill these rats and the orcs when we catch up to them without getting wounded very much. Who's next? Talindra, right?"

"Yes," Olette said. "I'm going to shoot another arrow at the same rat I shot at before." She rolled her d20, and everyone could see that the die landed on sixteen. "Well that's gonna be a hit," Olette announced happily, "and for damage…five."

"Your second arrow sinks in underneath the dire rat's shoulder and pierces a lung. The dire rat crashes to the ground. It's still breathing, but it's laboured and the rat's not moving or getting up anytime soon."

"Three down," Olette said with a smirk as she looked at Naminé. "That's a fifth of them. Okay Yuffie, show the wizard there what Furindy can do."

"I'm going to shoot my shortbow at the rat closing in on her and me," Yuffie declared. "Shit! I missed again. Okay, I'm going to move in front of Innohnine and draw my light mace and put away my shortbow and try to look as threatening as possible. I've got a higher AC than the wizard so hopefully the rat will go after me instead."

"Now it's Balin's turn," Roxas announced gruffly. "And I'm going to take one of these rats down for sure. I'm just going to hit the one directly in front of me. Ha! I roll fifteen, and even losing one to my roll because it's small my roll's going to be twenty. I deal 1d10 plus three damage which is going to be… eleven."

"Your axe sinks into the dire rat's spine, severing the spinal column around the rat's abdomen. Bone fragments from the upper part of the ribcage and vertebrae momentarily cling to your axe amongst the blood as you draw it out. The dire rat squeals in dire pain and then stops moving."

Roxas laughed and grinned, and shared a second high-five with Sora. This time though, Sora struck Roxas' palm with his automail hand, and the blond twin yelped in sudden pain.

It was now Riku's turn again. "I'm going to attack the dire rat that hit me," he declared, readying his d20.

_Clack-clack-clack!_

"And I roll fourteen, plus four is eighteen, minus one is seventeen."

"You hit with your greatsword. Roll damage. Wait, you're using a greatsword. Shit, it's already dying." Pence gave a humoured chuckle. "Alright, roll your 2d6 to see whether it's dead or dying."

Riku grinned and rolled his six-sided die twice. "I deal six damage plus my plus five modifier from strength and wielding a weapon with two hands, so I deal eleven damage to the rat." He looked into the illusion, seeing his paladin of Lathander swing his greatsword with a mighty overhand swing, cutting deep into the dire rat's flank. "Ha! Suck it, bitch!"

"What?" Naminé asked, laughing along with the rest of the group.

"I mean, suck it, knave!"

"Oh gods," Pence murmured, placing his head in his hands as boisterous laughter pealed out from the lips of the seven players. He wearily waved his hand. "Naminé, Innohnine Moonfall's turn, if you please."

"I take a move action to load my crossbow and a standard action to fire it," Naminé told him. "Let's see. My normal ranged attack bonus is plus one, but since I cast magic weapon on my crossbow that's now a plus two, but since I'm attacking a small creature and I'm a medium creature that goes back to plus one. I roll…" Naminé sighed pitifully. "I roll a nine."

"You miss."

"Yeah, I know," the blonde returned.

"Now the rats go," Pence declared. At his words, the group tensed up. There were still ten of the rats ready to fight. "One of them attacks Eletra, hits, and deals one damage. The one that was going for Innohnine stops for a second as Furindy rushes in front of the half-elf, and moves up to the equal-sized halfling. The dire rat attacks, the dire rat lunges at your arm and nips you for one damage."

"Ouch," Yuffie muttered while she glowered. "That rat's going to pay on my next turn."

"The other rat finally closes on the elf and attacks her, and misses wildly," Pence exclaimed. "Talindra dodges the rat perfectly, sidestepping out of the way of its wild lunge."

"Naturally," Olette answered with a smile.

"Three are still attacking Stor," Pence said to himself. "One hits, and deals three damage. One of the rats goes at Stor while he's busy dodging the other rats, and bites a bit of flesh out of his leg."

"I shout in pain!" Sora exclaimed loudly. They could hear Stor's voice shouting inside of the illusion.

"It really does sound like a battle down there," Roxas muttered, peering into the illusion. Blood was seeping from the broken bodies of the dead or dying rats and staining the farmland red, as well as the blood dripping from the wounds several of them had received on behalf of the rats. Growling from their characters at the rats could be heard, as could the snarls and squeaks of the dire rats.

"Now the ones that are attacking Balin," Pence said. He began to roll.

Roxas watched as the two conscious dire rats in front of his character bristled, preparing to attack. "Come on!" Balin roared at them. "Bring your pretty faces to my axe!" One lunged at the dwarf, teeth snapping and jaws dribbling with saliva, and Balin's shield came up in front of the dwarf's face, catching the rat square in the face and keeping it at bay, but the other came in from the side and bit down on the dwarf's leg. Roxas winced as he heard his character's grunt of pain.

"The dire rat that hits you deals two damage," Pence informed him. "And there are still two attacking Johnny C. Norris." Pence rolled twice and grimaced. "Both hit, and the paladin takes four damage."

"That's all the dire rats. Sora, it's your turn."

-A-D-

Stor kicked the dire rat off of his leg as the other two were foiled by his shield and his scale mail, biting back the gasp of exclamation of pain he'd let escape from his mouth. He made a cursory glance, seeing the situation of his allies. The paladin was trying to hold back the two dire rats, that had just clamped down hard on his chest with their teeth, with his greatsword. He seemed to have a little trouble breathing; his chain shirt had held, though there was a rip in his tabard, but he was probably going to have a bruise there in a few minutes. The dwarf, Balin, was leaking blood from the rat that had just gotten its teeth into his leg, as well as from some bites on his arm. The woman a short ways behind him stood beside the body of a dying rat, working to get her scimitar around to slash it into the skull of the dire rat biting her leg; and the halfling was grasping at her left arm with her right, another rat having bitten her there hard.

This wouldn't do at all. How would he ever become a Knight in Silver if he fell to a bunch of oversized rats?

Roaring in outrage, Stor struck with his great-grandfather's sword at the dire rat he'd kicked off his leg. His sword bit back at the rat, cutting deep into the creature's internal organs. He wrenched the antique blade that he'd kept well-maintained out from the rat's dying body, blood dripping off of his sword's blade. The dire rat whimpered and lay, shuddering, on the ground.

Stor turned his head slightly at a shout from the woman, and saw her cut her scimitar across the top of the dire rat's head that was attacking her. The rat's jaws unclenched from being around her leg and it sank to the ground. Balin, next to him, sank his axe into the face of the rat that had bitten into his leg, smearing blood, bone, teeth, and brains all over the ground. The paladin threw the two that had been on him back, and skewered one as it leapt back in to attack him, the rat getting impaled on the paladin's mighty greatsword before the warrior flung it off to land in the tilled fields.

There came a shout from the elf and Stor turned his head, seeing her shout being one of grim victory, one of her twin rapiers sliding into the body of the dire rat she was facing. Stor's eyes fell to the halfling and wizard, and watched as the little mace carried by the halfling struck the rat in front of her right between the eyes, followed by a small white ray that sparked with lightning, the ray streaking from the half-elf's extended left hand and hitting the dire rat between the eyes. The dire rat went cross-eyed, slumping onto the ground.

-A-D-

"Wow," Pence said, watching as the group cheered and exchanged high-fives. "You guys just had a nice string of good rolls."

"So," Roxas said, absolute confidence brimming in him since his critical hit that dealt thirty-three damage to the dire rat he'd targeted, "what are the rats doing?"

"The four dire rats that are left withdraw," Pence declared.

"Awesome!" Roxas said, "We get attacks of opportunity against them as they're running away with their tails between their legs."

"I said that they withdraw, not that they simply move out of your threat range."

"That has them moving at eighty feet for the round though, right?" Sora asked. "Since a dire rat's movement speed is forty feet per round?"

"Yes," Pence answered.

"I draw my composite longbow and fire at one of the two that was running away from me," he said.

"I do the same," Kairi said. "Putting away my scimitar and drawing out my longbow, I mean, while running up to stand next to Stor."

"It's not your turn though," Olette said.

"The rats are running away," Pence said, "so I can allow them to act at the same time."

"I'll take the one on the right," Sora said.

"Then I'll get the one on the left," Kairi told him, both of them rolling their dice. Kairi's die came up with 12, and Sora's 20. Sora rolled again, and succeeded in getting a critical hit.

"You both hit," Pence said, mollified a little with their success, "and Sora's is a critical, again. Roll for damage." The pair did so, and while Kairi rolled a seven to knock out her target instantly, Sora only rolled a two. Fortunately for him it was a critical, so it dealt six instead and he brought down the dire rat.

"Okay," Pence said, smiling now while the group was celebrating their victory, "so out of fifteen dire rats, you guys killed thirteen of them and sent the other two scampering away in defeat; that's definitely not bad for an encounter that was geared for a higher level party. Thank the gods though that you guys got lucky."

"Huh? Lucky?" Yuffie asked. "What do you mean lucky? We rule."

"I hate to break it to you Yuffie," Kairi said, "but Pence is right, we were lucky."

"What? No way!"

"I mean it," Kairi said. "The dire rats all had an armour class of fifteen, which is pretty comparable to our own. I mean, Sora's fighter and Roxas' barbarian both have ACs of seventeen, a bunch of us have sixteen, Riku's paladin's got fifteen and Innohnine has an AC of eleven. Plus their bite also has an attack modifier of plus four, and there were fifteen of them. We were outnumbered over two to one."

"That encounter also had an encounter level of basically three," Pence said.

"Encounter level?" Sora asked, "What's that?"

"Oh, I read up on this," Olette said, with surprising earnest. "Essentially each monster or trap or whatever obstacle that we encounter has a challenge rating designed to challenge a standard party of four adventurers. For instance, an orc has a challenge rating of one half, so if a party of two orcs meets up with a party of four level one adventurers that sets it as an encounter level of one, which makes it a good challenge for the party to overcome. Putting four orcs against four adventurers makes the encounter level go up to two, so it would be better suited to a party of four level two adventurers, as opposed to four level ones."

"And something like a Dire Boar has a CR of four," Kairi said, looking at the opposite page of the _Monster__Manual_ to the one where the Dire Rat was listed, "which means a single Dire Board is a nice challenge to a party of level four characters."

Sora shook his head slightly and looked quickly at Pence. "Wait, so the fight we just had was geared towards a party of level _three_characters and we're only level one?"

"No," Pence said. "That encounter was actually geared towards a party of four level fives, but since you guys are seven characters, it brought the encounter level down to two point eight-five or something because you're almost twice the size of a standard party, so I'm calling it an EL3 encounter. Dire rats have a challenge rating of one third, and there were fifteen of them; that's over twice what a party of your size and experience should be fighting."

"And we won!" Roxas announced. "Solidly."

"Luckily," Kairi repeated.

Pence admitted, "That's kinda the problem with you guys being in the Silver Marches. Encounters here are hard, but you're also lucky that you've got such a big party. The other side of the coin for me is that in order to make things challenging for you guys I'd either have to pull in a big monster that could end up killing some of you, or send a crapload of little guys in after you. And that was just a random dire rat encounter in the Rauvin Vale too. I'd hate to have seen what it would have been if you'd ended up fighting the maximum number of twenty rats, or the dire wolf or an ogre."

Kairi immediately flipped to the dire wolf and gulped. "Yeah, I'm glad we didn't fight that thing too," she said, snapping the book shut and handing it back to Pence. He cracked it open and quickly flipped through the pages until he reached the dire rat again.

"Right, these guys can infect you with filth fever through their bite. Everyone who took damage needs to make a DC 12 Fortitude Saving Throw or you're infected. Roll your dice and apply your base fortitude save bonus."

_Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!_

Kairi winced. "Three ain't gonna cut it, is it?" Pence shook his head.

"I pass," Roxas said, a sentiment that was immediately shared by everyone else who took damage besides Kairi's character, Eletra.

"Okay, so Eletra's diseased with filth fever, but you don't know it and it could set in anytime from one day to three days from now," Pence told them. "For all you know, all of you could have been infected by their bite. What are you guys going to do now? You left Silverymoon at noon and you've been travelling for four hours, which is about half a day's travel."

"First," Riku began, "I think we should take some time to bandage our wounds, and then continue on for another few hours."

"Sounds good," Sora agreed.

There came a sudden knocking on the door, and Sora quickly got up and turned off the Led Zeppelin sphere that had been playing in the background. A voice came through the door. "Your Highnesses," came the voice of the venerably-aged butler, Kensworth, "dinner is ready to be served."

"Great," Kairi called. "We'll be right there."

"We can deal with the battle aftermath _after_ supper," Sora agreed.

"And figure out how you guys are going to heal your asses," Yuffie smirked.

"Your halfling got hurt too Yuffie," Roxas reminded her. "It wasn't just us."

"Bah, I took _one_ damage. How much did _you_ take Mr. Stoneaxe?"

Kairi rolled her eyes as they all reached the door and was about to open it before stopping. Holding the door closed fast, she turned to look at the group behind her. "Remember," she said seriously, "if anyone asks, we've been studying, not playing a game."

Riku raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"What would happen if Alton and Harland found out that we were playing a game and not letting them play with us?" Kairi asked them. She could see Naminé, Sora, and Roxas all wincing, while the others shrugged or just gave Kairi blank looks.

"They'd complain," Naminé answered slowly, "and we both know how much Ovan and Kaylee dote on them."

"Complain?" Sora asked incredulously. "Those two would scream and scream and scream until we're forced to let them play with us, and then we'll have to spend the rest of the night going through character creation with the two of them."

"And knowing them," Kairi added, "the pair of them would want to be sorcerers or fighters or rogues, make up stupid names for them, and then kill us all because it'd be funny."

"So we're agreed then," Pence said, "no talking about the game while we're around them, Lord, or Lady Ramius?" Heads all nodded, and the group of eight left the room.

-A-D-

_Changes in characters:_

_Stor Stormwind: -5HP (current 10/15); +250XP (250/1000)_

_Eletra Greenwood: -2HP (current 4/6); infected with Filth Fever, yet to manifest; +250XP_

_Talindra Amalith: +250XP_

_Furindy Penelibaris: -1HP (current 6/7); +250XP_

_Balin Stoneaxe: -6HP (current 9/15); +250XP_

_Johnny C. Norris: -7HP (current 4/11); +250XP (250/3000)_

_Innohnine Moonfall: -1SP (current 2/3SP per day); +250XP (250/1000)_

_That's all you guys get for this one. An introduction to combat against a bunch of dire rats, a realization that none of them can as of yet heal, and a plot point out-of-game._

_**May the Grace of the Valar Protect You**_

_Shire Folk_


	5. A Discovery

**Table of the Keyblades**

Chapter V: A Discovery

"So how is your studying going?" Ovan asked as Kairi and her friends all sat down around the table.

Kairi groaned. "Frustrating," she answered. "There's a bunch of stuff that I'm not getting."

Pence smiled conspiratorially. "Don't worry Kairi, you'll get it in no time."

"Thanks for the reassurance," Kairi answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes, while Agatha, Kensworth, and Honoka, all came out of the kitchen bearing a dolly filled with long covered silver platters and bowls. In a thrice the table was laid with hot roasted meat, succulent potato dishes, and savoury greens doused lightly with melted butter and black pepper.

"Looks delicious," Olette said, eyeing the food ravenously while stomachs all across the table rumbled.

"Well, dig in then, kids," Ovan said with an easy smile, "you'll need your strength if you're going to keep your studying up."

"That and supper feels like a nice break," Sora admitted. "I don't want to think about circle theorems right now."

"Pffsh, circle theorems," Riku scoffed, "just wait until trigonometry."

"I prefer hydrocarbon nomenclature," Naminé added. "Organic chem. It's fun."

"I would rather be doing organic chemistry than physics," Olette groaned. "For some reason, I'm just not getting it. And I thought that _I_ was one of the smart ones."

"Are you drawing your vector diagrams?" Pence asked.

"Yes."

"Are you using the right formulas?"

"_Yes_."

"Are you manipulating the formulas properly?"

"I should be," Olette retorted.

"Hey," Riku interjected, "I thought we _weren't_ going to be talking about schoolwork?"

"You're right; sorry Riku," Olette murmured. She began tucking into her food before leaning back, closing her eyes, and moaning in contentment.

"Hey Riku; Tidus, Roxas, and I are going to spar each other tomorrow after school," Sora spoke up. "Want to come with?"

"Like to, but can't. Yuffie and I are going for dinner and then we're seeing _Lés Miserables_ tomorrow night, and I'd rather not go out all sweaty."

"You're going to theatre?" Naminé asked. She peered over at Yuffie. "How'd this happen?"

"I may have wrung his arm a little," Yuffie admitted with a sinister grin.

"No, I mean _you_ and musical theatre. I just can't see it, Yuffie."

"Hey, I can like theatre!"

"Have you ever gone before?"

"No…but that doesn't mean that I can't start going now! I might even enjoy it!"

"Alright, alright," Naminé relented. "Well, have a good time."

"Oh we will," Yuffie laughed. "Even if we end up not liking it, we're still going to have a good time tomorrow." Riku chuckled slightly, grinned, and stabbed a piece of meat with his fork. Kairi gave him a playful look of disgust and commented about that kind of discussion at the _dinner_ table, with _children_ present, while Sora gave Riku a quick clap on the back.

-A-D-

The rest of supper was pretty uneventful, and they were all able to actively keep the conversation away from any Dungeons and Dragons related topics to keep Harland and Alton completely in the dark about what they were really doing in the girls' studio. Once all of their food had been consumed, the eight returned to their places at the table within the studio, and Kairi locked the door. Sora put the Led Zeppelin sphere back on to play, and all eyes returned to Naminé's magical illusion of the role-playing tub set within the table. Their characters were all still in the positions that they'd left them in after their battle with the dire rats.

"Okay, so…" Riku began as he looked back at his character sheet, "we took a shitload of damage, from a bunch of rats."

"That were the size of hobbits," Sora added pointedly.

"I'm going to ask this again, can any of us heal?" Kairi said.

"Well, your rangers and Riku's paladin will be able to cast divine spells and heal HP later," Pence said, "and at level 2 Riku's paladin can use Lay on Hands, but right now, no."

"So how are we supposed to heal?" Riku asked, frustration leaking into his voice as he looked at his hit point total.

"As long as you guys rest for eight hours straight you'll recover a hit point per character level a day," so sayeth the all-powerful Dungeon Master, "and twice that if two of you succeed on Heal checks."

"Why two of us?" Naminé asked.

"You can only provide long-term care for a maximum of six people and you can't provide it to yourself. So since there are seven of you, two of you need to succeed on Heal checks to assist in healing all the damage you guys took."

"But I didn't take any damage," Naminé said, "and neither did Olette's character."

"Then if you or Olette succeed then it won't matter if everybody else fails," said Pence. "I assume that you're all going to roll for it?" Dice clacked as they rolled. "Okay, adding your modifiers to Heal, who all rolled higher than fifteen?"

Olette, Riku, and Roxas all raised their hands.

"Good! When you guys stop for the night you can start setting up long-term care for everybody. What are you doing right now?"

-A-D-

Stor finished wrapping a bandage around his leg where one of the dire rats had bitten him. The wound stung, he'd admit, but it was far from debilitating. Others had fared worse, especially the paladin. He strode to the body of the dire rat he'd shot, and with a quick jerk of his wrist he removed the arrow. Only feet away was the rat that the other ranger had felled, so he gathered her arrow as well before returning to where their party had gathered around the wizard's pony.

"Here," he said, handing the woman her arrow. She took it and nodded in thanks.

"That was a nice shot you made too," she added.

"Thank you," said Stor. Balin drank deeply from a draught of the ale he'd brought with him.

"Ah," he said with a contented sigh, parting his lips from the mug. "That was good. My axe thirsts for blood, but it wants more than just that of rats."

"Maybe it can drink some of your own?" the halfling piped up. "You've lost a little bit there. I'm sure your axe would just love a little sip of it."

"It would also love a taste of halfling, I'm sure," remarked Balin, taking another swig of his ale.

"Earlier comment retracted," said the little one. She plopped down on the ground, fished out a piece of wood and a small knife, and started to whittle. It looked like she was already partially through carving the piece, though what it was going to be still remained a mystery to all but the perky little humanoid.

The elf stood up from where she had been busy assisting their young paladin of the Morninglord in tending to the wounds he had received, and peered up at the sun. "We still have a few hours light and many leagues ahead of us. We should continue after the orcs."

"Agreed," said the paladin with a nod. "Every minute we delay increases the gap between us and our quarry."

"Then let's move," Stor stated, grabbing his pack and replacing it on his body. He held his hands out to both the woman and halfling, and each looked at them for a moment before grasping them and letting him help each to their feet. "I don't think we've all been introduced, anyway."

"No, we haven't," said the ranger.

"Furindy Penelibaris," declared the halfling. She bowed with a sweep of her hand. "It's a pleasure."

"Eletra Greenwood," said the woman gripping Stor's hand.

"Stor Stormwind."

Balin lifted his mug towards them all. "Balin Stoneaxe. You shoot and fight well, lass." He drained his mug and stowed it away, giving a small burp.

"My name is Innohnine Moonfall," their wizard said as she mounted her pony. "It is a name that will be remembered in years to come."

"I'm sure it will," the greatsword-wielding paladin commented sincerely. "Sir Johnny C. Norris shall protect you for now to ensure that it will."

"You are not as invulnerable as you think, Sir Johnny," the elf reminded him, though she appeared skeptical of his title. "Making large claims like that will have you lying dead sooner than you realize."

"And her?" Stor asked Eletra.

"That's Talindra Amalith," Eletra answered as the elf speedily took off to the front of the group before being lost to sight in the farmland. "Don't mind her too much. She just gets annoyed when others boast more than is good for them."

"Don't we all?" Stor murmured, starting anew on their trek to the north.

-A-D-

Pence rolled a couple of times behind his screen, made a note to himself on a piece of paper, and then reclined in his chair as best as he could. He looked at his players. "So you go on for another few hours, getting out of the cultivated land and onto an open plain and suddenly the blood trail you've been following stops."

"It stops?" Olette asked. Pence nodded.

"Why did it stop?" Kairi asked.

"You find the body of the wounded orc who had been leaving it behind."

"Cool, I search it," Yuffie announced.

"Roll."

"I take ten."

Pence shrugged. "Okay. You search the orc. You find several wounds on its body that have since stopped bleeding and you figure that it probably died late yesterday, but the carrion feeders haven't gotten to it yet. Around the orc are a large number of footprints stomped heavily into the earth and the plain."

"How many footprints?" Sora asked.

"There are a lot of footprints," Pence answered. "They're all over the area, so you can't get a good figure on the number of orcs there really were."

"Yeah, fine, what do I find on the orc?" Yuffie asked.

"Its weapons and armour are gone, but you find a small pouch of coins hidden underneath its tunic, a necklace of bones, and a silver spoon with a small piece of jade shaped like a muffin in the handle."

"Cool. How many coins are in the pouch?"

_Clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack._

"Nine copper, four silver."

"I take 'em."

"Without sharing them?"

"Why would I share them?"

"Roll Sleight of Hand."

"Nineteen."

"You pass. Nobody noticed you finding and taking the coin pouch."

"Objection!" Roxas cut in, like he was Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. "I make a spot check to see if I saw her stashing the coins!" Pence shrugged while the others chuckled.

"Fine, roll."

_Clack-clack-clack._

"Four."

Yuffie burst out laughing and Sora stood up and swept his left arm out, pointing an accusing finger at Roxas. "You fail!"

"Ain't no way you're going to catch me, Roxas," Yuffie told him. "My halfling got _skillz_."

"She'll rob us blind!" Roxas repeated.

"No she won't," Riku said. "She's good."

"Actually, I'm neutral," Yuffie told him. "I'm just stuck with a bunch of good characters, and a wizard."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Naminé asked, feigning offence.

"It means you're a wizard," Yuffie told her. "I've got the skillz, you've got the magicz, and they've got their goody-goody shoes on."

"Objection!" shouted Sora. "I left my goody-goody shoes at home today."

"So did you wear your mean and nasty shoes?" Olette asked. Riku snorted.

"No, he wore his I'm-a-dork oversized clown shoes today," he said.

Pence waited for another minute while they talked about shoes before a lull arrived in the conversation. "Moving right along," he began, "Yuffie. Furindy pocketed the coinage, what do you do with the rest of the orc's belongings?"

"Toss away the necklace and say that the orc's got a silver spoon on him."

"Why would an orc be carrying around a silver spoon?" Roxas asked.

"Maybe it was part of loot from a raid on some place settings he took part in," Riku joked. "They just charged into a dinner party and stole all the silverware."

"How can I eat!?" Kairi cried. "My fork was stolen!"

"Draw sword, stab meat with sword," Sora answered smugly. "Then eat meat."

"Sword's a bit big. A dirk would be easier to eat meat with," Olette reminded him.

Naminé giggled suddenly and looked at the other young woman. "Did you say dirk or dick?"

Olette blushed and quickly clarified that she'd said 'dirk'.

"Thinking of Hayner's meat, huh?" Pence asked with a grin.

"No I'm not! Now what's up with the spoon?"

"I bet she's like to be spooning Hayner," Kairi teased. Olette looked at her, completely red in the face.

"Yes, I would! Now shut up and tell me about the orc's silver spoon!"

"It's a spoon. He's carrying a silver spoon with a piece of jade in its handle," Sora said. "Why does there have to be anything significant about it?"

"Why would Pence tell us that the orc was carrying a silver spoon with jade in it if it wasn't significant?" Olette countered.

"I've got a pot with me. It's just a pot. If my character were a dead body you came across and he said that the fighter had a pot, would you instantly assume that it meant something important?"

"He could just be reading off the orc's inventory," Naminé suggested. Olette looked at Pence, who was smiling in mirth watching it all, and shook her head. "I'm taking the spoon," Naminé added.

"Anyone object? No? Okay, Innohnine gets the spoon. The sun will be going down within the hour, so are you going to set up camp here by the dead orc or keep going a little ways?"

"Let's go on a bit," Riku said. "I don't want to camp near a body and I don't feel like burying an orc. Let the crows eat him."

"Alright," Pence said. "So you travel for about ten more minutes, and after leaving the site of the dead orc Talindra and Eletra find the tracks of the rest of the orc raiding party and determine that there were twenty of them."

"Fuck," Kairi said quietly.

"They lead towards the woods to the north that you can just see on the horizon. You find a good site to set up camp for the night, close to a small copse of trees."

"What's a copse?" Roxas asked.

"Oh, a small cluster, group, of trees," Pence explained. Roxas nodded to show that he got it.

"I get a fire going," Kairi announced.

"And I'm going to crack open that cask of ale I've got, and get started on eating," Roxas said.

"I guess I'll help set up camp too," Sora added.

"And I'll scout the perimeter," Olette said.

Yuffie looked at Naminé as they watched their characters go about and do said things within the role-playing tub. "Hey, can I get a look at that spoon again? I want to see if I can guess how much it's worth."

Naminé shrugged. "Alright. I'm going to set up my tent."

"You have a tent?" Riku asked.

"Yeah," Naminé replied, like it was obvious.

"Spoiled little miss wizard," Sora mocked in sing-song. Naminé snorted, scribbled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to Pence while Yuffie rolled.

"Seventeen Appraise check," said Yuffie.

"You examine the silver spoon carefully and gauge that it's worth about two standard gold pieces," he said, reading the piece of paper.

"A silver spoon is worth two gold?" Sora asked. "How ridiculous!"

"It's a silver spoon with jade," Pence reminded him. He smiled at what Naminé had written down.

_I forget Electric Jolt and study Detect Magic_.

First time actually playing and she was already getting the hang of it. Double check any suspiciously detailed items you come across. Pence looked up at her. "That'll take you a half-hour."

"Kay," she answered. "When I'm done I'll cast it on the spoon."

"From where? In your tent?"

"Yeah."

"Are you facing the party when you do it?"

"I don't think so. I think I'm more hunched over the spoon and casting the spell down towards it."

"It's a cone-shaped emanation," Pence reminded her, "so you're not actually casting it on the spoon, you're casting it in the direction of the spoon."

"What's she casting while we're eating?" Roxas asked. "Hey is our stew done yet?"

Sora frowned. "I didn't say that I was preparing a stew. I was just going to have Stor eat rations."

"Well make a stew! We'll toss in some of our meat and eat it up with a loaf of the bread," Riku urged.

"Alright, fine," Sora relented. "I'm making a stew."

"Roll," Pence said.

"What!?"

"I want you to roll," Pence answered with a grin. Sora rolled. He smirked knowingly.

"Natural 20."

"Add Intelligence mod."

"21."

"You make an _awesome_ stew using what you guys have and all of you will gain a +1 circumstance bonus to healing received tonight and to fortitude saving throws against disease."

The table cheered and clapped Sora on the back. Kairi even gave him a peck on the cheek for his astounding roll. Pence laughed and scribbled down a sentence on a note. He passed it to Naminé.

Her eyes widened, jaw dropping.

"Guys," she announced as she read the note. "The spoon's magical."

They stopped and stared at her.

"Not just magical," she said, still staring at the note with disbelieving eyes, "_crazy_ magical."

"How can you tell?" Sora asked.

"Innohnine cast _detect magic_ on the spoon inside her tent," Naminé explained. "She sensed a very powerful magical aura on the spoon. It glowed like a sun."

"How do you know that?" Yuffie asked.

"It was on the note Pence gave me."

The other players all looked at the dungeon master. "You pass out secret messages?" Kairi asked, deadpan.

"Yeah," Pence said, like it was obvious. "You guys can do things without the others knowing and I can reveal information to certain members of the party depending upon the situation."

"So you pass notes?" Riku clarified, to which Pence nodded. He shrugged.

"This spoon..." Roxas began. "It's magic?" Naminé nodded. "Very magic?" She nodded again.

"Crazy magical," Naminé repeated.

"What does it do?" Sora asked eagerly, licking his lips. Naminé shook her head and glanced at Pence.

"I don't know," she replied. "Pence didn't say. All I know is that it's magical."

"So what does it do?" Olette asked.

"You don't know that," Pence answered with a sly little grin that drove them crazy with how he was withholding information.

"Oh come on!"

"You don't know that," Pence reiterated. "Now, if one of you knew the spell _identify_ and had a pearl worth one hundred gold pieces to use as a reagent in the spell's casting then…"

"Seriously Pence?" Roxas asked. "It's a freaking spoon. It's not like we're asking you to tell us what a magic sword we found is enchanted with."

"Nothing doing," insisted Pence. "If I told you guys right now that it was a wand of _fireball_ with thirty charges in the shape of a spoon then you'd go crazy and later on you'd expect me to just tell you what everything you find is without having your characters do any research or make any attempts to find out what anything you find does."

"Is it a wand of _fireball_ in the shape of a spoon?" Yuffie asked. Pence stared at her.

"No," Pence answered flatly.

"So how do we find out what it is?" she asked.

"Find someone who can cast identify and pay them to do it, have your wizard level up and learn the spell and then find a pearl to use as a material component for the spell, or experiment with it until you discover what it does," answered Pence.

"Sweet!" Sora said. "I grab the spoon and start waving it around, saying nonsense magic-sounding gibberish." Pence quickly rolled a die behind his screen. He rolled another one.

"The spoon zaps you for two points of nonlethal arcane damage."

"I laugh," Kairi chortled along with the great bout of laughter from everyone else in the room. "I laugh _real_ hard."

"I drop the spoon and scream bloody murder at it," Sora shouted. "And then I sourly begin eating my awesome stew."

It took a few minutes for the group to calm down after Sora's character got zapped by the spoon's magical discharge, but eventually they settled down enough and dropped the idle chatter in order to continue on. It was decided not to do anything more with the spoon for that night, and to just eat the stew and camp out for the night.

-A-D-

_Changes in characters:_

_Stor Stormwind: None_

_Eletra Greenwood: None_

_Furindy Penelibaris: +9cp, +4sp (current 18cp, 19sp, 214gp)_

_Innohnine Moonfall: gained +1 Silver Spoon of Muffin Bane_

_Johnny C. Norris: None_

_Balin Stoneaxe: None_

_Talindra Amalith: None_

_Party: Ate 1 loaf of bread, 1.5lbs of meat_

**_May the Grace of the Valar Protect You_**

_Shire Folk_


End file.
